


Like a Page from the Book of My Fantasy

by TrickySleeves



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Aged-Up Character(s), Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Blood and Violence, Boss Battle, Busking, Canonical Character Death, Celtic-Inspired Faerghus, Equinox Festival, F/M, Felix as shield and protector, Green Magic, Gunshots, Happily Ever After, Music, Seasonal, Sexual Content, Strangers to Lovers, Urban Fantasy, Viola Playing, mild body horror, protags who kill bad people, scotch flights and blue balls, thematic romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-03
Updated: 2020-06-25
Packaged: 2021-03-01 19:53:52
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 45,889
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23972560
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TrickySleeves/pseuds/TrickySleeves
Summary: When the head of King Blaiddyd's security notices a busker in the dead of Fhirdiad winter, he turns his orderly life upside down to figure out what makes her tick.If only music and romance were enough to stop the Agarthan Cult threatening a violent takeover of Fhirdiad. Talk about bad timing!
Relationships: Felix Hugo Fraldarius/My Unit | Byleth
Comments: 80
Kudos: 125





	1. Winter

Fhirdiad winters flexed so cold Nemesis would cry, if the tears hadn't already frozen to his eyes. The contrast was cruel. The warmer months saw the city boil with activity: families led children around museums; professionals ducked into bakeries before home; tourists thronged the street-carts and performers.

Winter, though, held its court over barren promenades. All activity was reduced to the efficient rush of the workday commute. Hats and heavy scarves bent low the workers’ heads, and they bundled into thick coats that tripled their size. They puffed their pleasantries, more steamy breath than words. All throughout the streets, the only close-to-musical sounds came from cars, honking their frustration after overestimating their parking opportunities.

Already late, Felix mounted the subway steps. He lingered in the momentary comfort of the underground’s last fetid warmth, before pulling his fur-lined hood close to his ears and stepping into the open, where his footsteps fell among the stream of workers up the hill to the Capitol.

A security professional, he walked head-up and roved for threats. Yet, every morning, he shook off the disappointment of an ordinary day—no bandits to corner, no assassins to cut down, no villains to subdue. Scanning the corners of his eyes, he saw only normal people rushing through the streets to avoid the cold, and that (theoretically) was a good thing.

Fhirdiad’s layout was as familiar as his own tongue against his own teeth. First was the Academy of Sorcery. Each of its blocky buildings was a reminder not to be late that day, due to an early meeting scheduled with Annette Dominic of the Sorcerers’ Academy to renew the protective spellwork on the Capitol.

Soon, ahead, he would see a great park that ribboned the city block. Come spring, the park would replenish itself with grateful plants. The seeds would tumble in from birds and the wind, carrying mutated varieties that the botanists liked to clip and study. These weeds were all that survived in Fhirdiad’s harsh ground. Right then, though, the park was frozen into icicle forests that required frequent clearing.

Just as he was passing the park, he noticed a few things that slowed his tracks. Someone was standing there at the park’s edge, which wasn’t a crime considering it was already sun-up. Their stillness was like a riverstone stuck firm in the bank while waters flowed inconsiderately onward. Even more strange, though, this person was playing music. It was a sonorous melody rising from the throat of a stringed instrument. Dry air and noisy winds hemmed in the sound’s influence, even as it tried to reach the stress and flow of the commuters.

As other commuters passed by the busker in the park, Felix noticed each of them inexplicably relax their steps. Their faces thawed from frozen frowns to little smiles. They moved like sleepwalkers, not registering the music that was clearly affecting them; no one stopped.

Felix stepped off the sidewalk, and his boot crunched snow covered with a thin ice layer, as he stalked toward the musician. At a respectful distance, he paused to wait and listen.

The strands of hair falling below the musician’s knit toboggan were the soft green of early Spring shoots, jeweled in ice crystals. Her fingers skimmed and soared across the instrument’s neck, pale where they protruded from her fingerless gloves. In her other hand, the bow moved and stabbed the air. Sometimes, the jabs were like the gentle warm-up movements of two swordsmen before a spar; other times, the bow-point struck the air in a flurry. He felt the string-song in his chest, in his ghost, in the way it melted his clenched jaw.

While the piece itself was soft and restful, the musician’s outtro wasn’t. Strong fingers rammed a hard vibrato on the wide C-string, reminding Felix of a dragon’s roar. She glissandoed with her whole body, sawed an arpeggio just for fun, and ended on such a slow, noisy bow-stab, that Felix would have found it perfectly reasonable to see a bloody puncture wound in his own chest.

Taking a breather, the green-haired musician cradled the instrument back into the case, where it sat on the stone half-wall. She wrapped her fingers around a coffee cup, and vainly groped for its warmth.

“If you’re here about the permit,” she called, noticing Felix. “I sent in the paperwork. Haven’t heard anything back yet.” Her shrug was a challenge that spiked the ball into his court, but he had nothing at all to do with it.

“What permit?” Stepping closer, he could see the shaking and shivering that had begun once she stepped out of her musician’s power-stance.

“For the busking.” Her narrowed eyes looked Felix up and down. “Sorry, I thought you were from the State Office.” She lingered over Felix’s leather case, where he knew that a large Crest gave away that he worked at the Capitol.

“I do, but not in the permits office,” There was no eradicating the derision from his voice, a little knife-edge that foretold the half-dozen concealed weapons he kept on his person. “I’m the Head of Security for the Capitol.” If Felix’s boast surprised himself, it also paid off. The musician’s mouth dropped open, fogging out hot breath. Her eyes flew wide, offering a view of their Spring-green.

“Does my busking constitute a security risk?” He couldn’t tell if she was teasing. In fact, he couldn’t get a good read on her at all. Perhaps, it was the frost occluding both of their faces.

“No.” He snorted, and hot air puffed out like a steam engine. “I stopped to…” He arrayed his options: Honesty—she was a street performer, what was the harm in honesty? “I stopped to hear you play. What do you call that song?”

“I’ve been calling it, ‘A Place to Rest’? Did you like it?”

“I did.” She was rubbing her fingers between her hands. Felix looked at the tip jar beside her instrument case. A few meager dollars sat in the bottom, along with too little change for the jar to even be useful as a makeshift tambourine.

“And that instrument?” Felix asked, eyeing the elegant scroll. Inside the case, it seemed lusterless and inanimate, but Felix remembered how it appeared sitting under her chin, like half-tamed creature alive and singing. “Is that a violin?”

“No,” Her face scrunched annoyance, “It’s a viola.” How was he supposed to know? Felix considered moving closer, but before he could, his attention caught on the musician’s wristwatch, its face half-poking from beneath her barely-adequate gloves. He checked his own watch, only then remembering his appointment with Annette.

“I have to go,” he spouted out, his eyes flicking up to hers. “I don’t have any cash to tip you.”

The musician checked out the street where the early morning commuters were becoming more scarce. Most of them would already be packed into their offices, space heaters at their feet. “That’s okay. Thanks for stopping to chat.”

“Do you play here often?” How many times might he have trotted past without noticing her?

“I switch it up, but I’ll be here every day this week.”

“Good. I’ll be back tomorrow. And, what’s your name?”

“Why?” She was no longer wringing her hands, and her feet ground into the snow. Was she preparing to fight him? After he told her he was Head of Security for the King? He knew he might not look like much—neither the tallest, nor the most brawny guy in the office—but it took guts for her to think that she could take him. And yet, it was good that she could defend herself. As a street performer, she likely dealt with more crazies in one day than most people did in years of city-living. 

“I work in the same wing as the permits office. I can get your permit so you don’t have to worry about it.”

“Oh!” More relaxed, she dug through the pockets of the viola case, until she pulled out a small card. “It’s Byleth Eisner. It’s on the card here.” Her boots crunched through the snow toward him.

Her fingers were chapped, her nails conservatively cut, and the hemmed openings of her gloves were caked white with bow resin. But she wasn’t offering her hand or intending to shake. She was simply handing over the card, and so he took it. It was no great feat of trust to let him pick up her permit. If it wasn’t one government employee, it would be another. Besides, she’d probably given up on seeing it at all.

He nodded and turned to go, as she called out, “Bye!”, before beginning again on her viola. The instrument’s sorrowful tone cut a path for him through the frigid air.

* * *

Felix wasn’t about to catch shit for being late to work, because he knew how to avoid it. The key was to ignore everyone and look like a man on a mission. He passed by the raised eyebrows of Sylvain in PR, took a detour away from Ingrid’s office, which as head of legal, was only a few doors down from his own. Then he walked straight into his office, haughty head held high to find Blaiddyd and Annette waiting for him.

“Unusual for you to be so late, Felix.” With one eye, Dimitri surveyed Felix over the papers in his hand, while the smaller man slid into his desk chair. Annette had already taken her place in the reception chair. Her orange hair was tumbling down her shoulders, only slightly pressed from the hat that she had been wearing, which told him that she had been waiting at least ten minutes.

“Something came up.” He replied to Dimitri, resolving to ignore him from there out. When he wasn’t doing his job to protect his old friend from assassinations, he felt no need to coddle him. Directing his words to Annette, he said, “My apologies. So, we have some spells that are weakening and others that are expiring. My primary concerns are the defense shield on the front gate and the resilience spell on Blaiddyd’s office…”

The meeting with the sorceress spanned the entire work day. By the end of it Annette was magically exhausted, and Felix was socially exhausted and itching to hit a punching bag. “One last thing.” Now that they were back at his desk, he wanted to keep this quick. “I have my proposal for the sorcery needs of Blaiddyd’s security detail during the Tribute Concert this Saturday.”

“Oh the Tribute Concert! I almost forgot!” Annette bounced in her chair. “It will be great to hear the Faerghus Orchestra. They’re some of the best.”

“They always come second in ratings to the Adrestian Orchestra,” Felix said, stating the facts. He never really listened to the orchestra during concerts like this. He was always too preoccupied with surveillance: making sure everyone was in the right place, searching out threats, and eliminating them before anyone was the wiser. “We’ll only need one mage to patrol the box and one healer just in case...” Annette nodded her head, as she took notes and promised him the reinforcements he needed.

His big meeting over, Felix found Seteth at the permits desk. “I need to pick up a permit,” he began without even a, _hi, how do you do?_ “It’s for a street performer—a musician—by the name of Byleth Eisner.”

“You need this now?” Seteth glared suspiciously over his computer monitor. “I’m rather busy, Fraldarius.”

“And I’m about to head home, so yes, I need it now.”

“That permit is useless until the Spring. No street musician in their right mind would perform during the Winter like this.” 

But Felix waited. The soft threat spurred Seteth on, while Felix considered what a crazy stunt it was for Byleth to continue playing outdoors. She was destined for hypothermia or worse. The permit might help her in one way—the police wouldn’t get her before the frostbite did—but it wasn’t enough. Felix registered a mental note to pick up a better pair of gloves for her on his way home.

“Here, Fraldarius.” Seteth slid the small permit card across the counter.

Felix nodded, grabbed the card, and left the office.

On the subway home, he took out Byleth’s contact card. Its intel was limited: a business email that sufficed for her contact number when she was in range of wifi. On the back, it listed all the orchestras and chamber groups she performed in. Felix didn’t have the patience to read through them. Instead, he satisfied himself with the thought of winning her trust the next day when he turned up with the permit.

* * *

On his commute the next morning, Felix’s feet hurried automatically toward the park. When he was within range of Byleth’s music, his shoulder seemed to relax. Again, the footsteps of the passersby lightened as they heard her. Their heads lifted from looking at their feet. Their backs straightened from the bent postures of walking against the cold. Some even started smiling.

Felix stepped into edge of the park, following the crunched footsteps he had trail-blazed yesterday. He stood at a distance from the musician, as she rapidly bowed something that sounded like a battle-theme. Her bow arm was moving so quickly the black glove appeared to make tracers in the air.

Felix thought he could hear the ghost of chanting, along with the vision of a field far to the south that he had once visited with his father. He imagined the clash of an army in uniforms of red, meeting the might of those in blue. The spell passed as Byleth finished the piece, letting it trail off. Her bow struck a double-stop and two notes fought for dominance, as if that clash had more to say that it simply couldn’t.

He shook his head of the images and stepped forward. “You must be unhinged to be out here in this.” The snow was falling on both of them, and the wind made Felix want to draw his hood.

“And yet, here you are with me.” She quirked him a smile, as she lowered the instrument and stepped out of her legs apart, back straight musical power pose. Almost immediately she started shivering a little and pulled her coat closer around herself.

“Here,” he thrust out his hand with her permit and kept a distance between them, so she wouldn’t perceive him as a threat.

“My permit—you really did get it.” Her gratitude zinged across him like a thrown knife, and he was ready for more. He wanted to see those Spring-green eyes—so neglected and resilient—recognize someone who had taken the time to care for them.

“I also have these,” he said, handing her the thickly lined gloves he had picked up on his way home from work yesterday. “You should wear them when you’re not playing.”

“Thank you, but I don’t—I can’t—” He pressed the gloves into her hand, and let go, so that she would have to catch them. As she ran her fingers over the high-quality stitching, her expression transitioned from grateful to haunted. His gesture had unearthed the kind of underlying vulnerability that she normally painted over with own whimsical pride in her sense of whimsy-sodden lunacy.

“Take them and wear them. Otherwise, your fingers will get frost-bite, and you won’t be able to play.” She was looking down at the gloves and when she looked up, Felix had already slipped some cash into her tip jar.

“What are you—!” That strange vulnerability roughed up her eyes all over again. It was everything Felix had hoped for.

“What?” He cocked one eyebrow, face neutral.

“Please, let me at least buy you coffee.” He weighed the options of being on time to work versus missing coffee with the bewitching musician, and yes, coffee was better.

“We can get coffee.” He glanced down the wall at her tip jar, which had been nearly empty before he showed up. “You’re not buying, though.”

He was patient as she wiped and dried her viola of snowflakes, noticing how she took much better care of the precious instrument than the took of herself. They walked to a small bakery on the corner, owned by an old college friend.

Felix let Byleth sit as he ordered two mugs of the drip coffee. He tipped the kind, blond baker behind the counter, giving his customary nod, before he carried the mugs back. Felix drank his coffee black and watched as Byleth poured enough half-n-half into hers to turn it a soft caramel hue.

“I don’t even know your name.” Her hands fretted out of the gloves he had given her, before wrapping around the coffee mug.

“It’s Felix.”

She repeated it, letting it fill her mouth and roll from her tongue. If he had been a few years younger, he would have blushed crimson from that.

“If you want to repay me,” he said. “You can tell me why you do this?”

She sighed. “Once, it was a duo act with my dad, a way to make money and develop our own playing in between gigs. But he died a few years ago. Now, I guess I just haven’t let it go.”

She said it so simply, so plainly. It was as if, before his eyes, he could see her shrinking and reforming into a little child. He imagined her father teaching her to bow in the park, using those jabbing motions that reminded him of the tip of a sword.

“And where do you stay?” His eyes flickered a dance around the other tables. What would he do if she admitted to staying on the streets? Offer her Ingrid’s couch? Offer her his place and sleep on the couch himself?

“I rent rooms,” she said easily. “There are lots of rooms in this city. People are always coming and going. It’s not hard to find a place for a week or two, whole months, depending.”

“I see.”

Felix bit the inside of his mouth. He imagined all the things he could say then like an array, laid out from the most emotional to the least. The only question was what to choose.

He weighed what he understood about the violist before him: Renting rooms wasn’t safe. Playing music alone on the street wasn’t safe. Traveling as much as she did was definitely dangerous. Not wearing proper clothes in Faerghus winter was downright mental.

She was reckless in a way that a security specialist never had the opportunity to be, and for once he wanted to be reckless too. Out of the array, he chose the most emotional option. “My father’s dead too.”

Byleth coughed on her coffee. Its heat singed the soft folds at the back of her throat. “Oh!” she huffed out, suddenly beating hard on her own chest to clear her windpipe.

Felix felt the embarrassment crash him down from his lofty orbit. This was not how he had expected her to react. Would he have to get up and stop her from choking?

But she quelled the coughing fit herself, her eyes watery from it all. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I’m so sorry. How?”

“He took a bullet for Blaiddyd, jumped into the line of fire.” Felix offered the information as plainly as she had. In fact, he could say it so plainly now, that he didn’t know why he was talking about it.

He watched the corner of her mouth frown. “I think I heard about that.”

“I’m sure you did. Assassination attempts like that aren’t small news.” He waved it off and turned his eyes away from hers. “So will you keep playing for frozen pennies all winter?”

“Unfortunately not,” she laughed. “I’m leaving Faerghus after the end of this week. It’ll be a relief to head South to the Empire.”

“Indeed?” Felix maintained his neutral expression.

“I’m contracted to an ensemble in the Mittelfrank Opera House. It’ll last the rest of the winter.”

“That sounds like a better life than the one you have here.” He spoke into his coffee mug.

“Oh, I’ll be doing same thing no matter where I am.” Her eyes danced mischievously at his discomfort. She didn’t ask why it made his stomach turn to think of her playing on the streets like that. She just let herself enjoy it in her little way. “But there will be much less snow.”

“Will you come back, then, when the snow melts?”

“It depends on what contracts I get. But I like spring in Fhirdiad, and now I have a permit.” She smiled at him over her mug, and he felt the bottom drop out of his stomach.

* * *

Felix secured permission from Blaiddyd to be out of the office in the mornings. His cover story had something to do with subway security. Of course, Blaiddyd trusted him so much that Felix didn’t bother falsifying paperwork to justify his lies. If he was worried about shirking responsibility, he comforted himself that he would be on call the whole time.

“What was that one called?” He asked Byleth about the last piece she had been playing before he dragged her off to coffee again.

“Right now I’m calling it ‘Fodlan Winds’. What do you think?” She smirked over her coffee at him, as if daring him to say anything other than that he loved it.

“To me,” he began, letting himself think it through, “that one has a warm sound. But from where I’m standing, the Fodlan winds are frigid.”

“You’re right about that.” She hummed a pause. “We’ll see when the Spring comes.” They quietly regarded each other, before she broke the trance and looked down into her coffee. “I slept in your gloves last night—they were so warm.”

Felix could only just see her mischievous smile. He wanted to linger over the idea of her sleeping in the gloves he had gotten her. It was the sort of detail that could quickly unfurl into fantasy.

However, he couldn’t avoid how strange that statement was. “You slept in gloves? Why?”

“It’s very cold where I’m staying. I don’t think the room has heat, or at least the man I’m renting from won’t turn it on.”

“You’re staying without heat in this weather? Byleth, that’s fucking dangerous.”

“I have a lot of blankets, my coat is very warm, plus the gloves you gave me. It’s actually more distressing for my viola than it is for me. Fragile thing’s made of wood—it waxes and wanes with every temperature drop.”

“You’re a lunatic.”

She just smiled at him, inscrutable.

* * *

“Ingrid,” Felix popped into law office as soon as his lunch break started. “Do you have an extra space heater that you’re not using?” He peered down at her desk laden with paper-stacks and folders, hoping she wouldn’t ask why.

“Yeah, Dedue fixed our heat—I didn’t tell you? You can borrow mine, just tell me you’re not going to use it as part of another inventive solution to an ant infestation. There are better ways to take care of ants, you know.”

“Ants in this weather? But, I’ll be sure to use a flame-thrower when the ants infiltrate us in the Spring. The heater—it’s just in the hallway then?”

Felix grabbed it, box and all, shrugged on his coat, and set out through the reception doors as quickly as he could. The walk to the park was brisk and downhill. Felix’s lungs ached from breathing in all the cold, but he didn’t care. He just needed to be there before Byleth left.

Byleth was playing “Fodlan Winds” again when he got to the park, but she broke off as soon as she saw him with the box in his hands.

“What is that?” She asked, looking alarmed.

“It’s not much, but just use it tonight, okay?” He set it down next to her stuff. Straightening up, he gave himself a moment to soak in her face, lapping up that same vulnerability from the other day. 

“Thank you.” Her voice was a weak whisper from sipping on too much frigid air.

“I have to get going. Please play some more.”

Byleth smiled at him softly, before she raised the viola to her shoulder. Felix trotted back up the hill. He relished the stitch it burned into his side and the cold shuddering through his lungs.

For the rest of the week, each morning, Felix stopped to listen to the green-haired musician play her viola. He invited her for coffee each day, and she only turned him down once. That had been Friday, and possibly their last chance to see each other. He respected her decision, and simply listened to her play as long as he could let himself before he headed up the hill to work.

* * *

Saturday evening’s tribute concert opened with a spotlight on Blaiddyd. Felix stood in the private box right behind Dimitri, as the King spoke into a surreptitious microphone. While Dimitri expressed his gratitude, Felix surveyed the assembly. He kept mark of restless guests, aristocrats, or nobility. He just about had the entire human landscape of the theater mapped into his mental grid, when the musicians started filing in.

They filled the stage from back to front. Felix made mental notes to help tell them all apart, despite their similar concert garb. And then, a woman with green hair joined the rivulet of musicians across the stage and sat in the second violist’s seat. Even if recognition weren’t Felix’s job, he would have known her anywhere. How did he not realize she would be here all along?

The Concert Master also had green hair, making Felix wonder if it was a musician thing. She stepped upstage with arrogant poise and struck the tuning A. Then she sat with such prim posture that it made Byleth look like a street urchin who had wandered in for the free buffet.

Felix’s job meant surveying the crowd, identifying threats, and eliminating problems before they happened. It had never been a difficult job, either, just one that required skill. That night, however, his job seemed difficult for the first time, as his attention split painfully. He would be carefully watching the crowd, when, time and again, his eyes obsessively returned to the green-haired violist.

When the concert ended, Felix’s security detail guided Blaiddyd up to the stage, where, under the security team’s watchful eyes, he greeted the audience. Felix himself stood stage-right, where he could keep sweep a panoramic view and get word back to his team through his mic and wire. Everyone—cabinet members, civilians, and nobles alike—knew who Felix was, and no one ever approached him.

Except this time, the second chair violist with the green hair had the gall to walk right up to him and stand there. Felix turned off his mic.

Her concert attire was the most exposed he had ever seen her, so he hadn’t previously known what to expect from the figure that existed under all those coats and sweaters. Byleth was statuesque, curved and strong-looking, so much so that he almost blushed thinking about it. He reckoned she would have no trouble earning her tips during any other season, when she wasn’t bundled beneath layers of wool.

“So you really are the Head of Security,” she said. Her impish smile was getting under his skin. He didn’t bother with the taunt, aside from raising one eyebrow. “What did you think of the concert?”

Too modern sounding for his taste. He much preferred the melodies she played in the park. “I thought it was fine, but it could have used more viola.”

“Lunatic,” she chortled. “No one in their right mind ever says that about an orchestra.”

“Well I do. This was the first concert I’ve really listened to.” When she looked away from him and down at her feet, they both wished he hadn’t said it. It was too sincere. He was too honest.

“This concert was why I was in Fhirdiad,” she said quietly. “I’ll be heading out after this.” 

There were things that he wanted to say, plenty of them, but he knew he shouldn’t say any of them. “I wish you safe travels.” His voice was a solemn match to her own.

“Always!” she boasted, pumping her fist in the air.

“No really, Byleth, please stay safe.”

She laughed. “Blaiddyd is lucky. I wish you were the head of my security entourage. You’re so good at it.”

He bit back a retort at the false praise, and then turned his head as something caught his attention in the crowd. He should be more alert than this, he thought. He should always know exactly where each member of his retinue was.

Byleth disappeared, then, right from under his nose. She faded into a mob of other musicians, all dressed in similar concert garb. Even with eyes trained to pick people out of a crowd, he couldn’t find the girl with the green hair.

* * *

That Monday, as Felix commuted to work, there was no music, and, therefore, no fake subway emergency to delay him. Just as she said she would, Byleth had gone.

He entered the front office at roughly the same time as Ingrid. “Hey,” Ingrid joined him as they walked. “That subway thing over?—Oh!” She caught sight of the front desk. “Is that my space heater? You brought it back. Though, you could have taken it up to my office.”

“Yeah,” Felix’s mouth was suddenly dry. A gut feeling directed him to examine the box. On the side was taped an envelope. Not the long thin enveloped used for business greetings but one that was square, soft, and pleasing. He tugged it off and slipped it into his pocket.

“What’s that?”

He had to tread lightly around Ingrid’s suspicious looks. “Note to tell the receptionist where to send the heater.”

Ingrid saw right through the awkward lie, even though she didn’t know what she was seeing. “In _that_ envelope?” She brushed her hair behind her ears, as she did every time she started an argument. He had seen her massacre people in the courtroom, right after this gesture.

“What of it?” Felix asked testily. As a clumsy exit strategy, he shoved the space heater into her arms. “Much to do.” He trotted away.

Safe in his own office, Felix opened the envelope. His eyes wandered impatiently over the graphics on the front, music notes that spelled out ‘thank you’. The stationery was clearly a catch-all she carried with her. When he opened the card, however, the message inside was all for him.

_Felix,_  
_Thank you for making my winter warmer. You don’t know how much I have appreciated your kindness.  
_ _I’m certain that we’ll see each other again._  
_In your debt,_  
_Byleth_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Story title comes from [Warpaint's "Baby"](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EjpyC5XkF70): _You live your life like a page from the book of my fantasy._
> 
> I had all these schemes to wait, stop bingeing fanfic, and eventually (down the line) write a post-canon in-character adventure. But instead, my mind has insisted, “But… What if Byleth plays the viola and Felix likes it?”
> 
> So now I’m listening to Animevivi's viola covers, Nadia Sirota's viola etudes and concertos, and falling hard for busker Byleth.
> 
> Take care and thanks for reading!


	2. Early Spring (with the Frost still on the Ground)

“—That’s exactly what this is—a call out!” If body-language could kill, Ingrid’s would have landed a critical hit. She was a charging bull, leaning flat hands on Felix’s desk. “You’re distracted, we’ve all noticed, but I’m the only one who will call you on it!”

Felix leaned back with his arms crossed, obeying some misguided belief that feigned nonchalance would dispel the lawyer’s rage. “Leave it, Ingrid. I slept poorly, and I missed one thing.”

“ _You_ can’t miss things, Felix.” It was almost a step too far when she started pointing her finger at him. “You miss something and Dimitri’s dead!” Felix’s hand twitched to twirl a pen from his desk.

“You think I don’t know that?” He imagined the pen as a broad-saber. He would use it to run through every fucking little thing in this world. 

Twenty years of friendship were more than enough to know each-others’ tells. So, when Felix started fidgeting, Ingrid pulled back from his desk and smoothed her hands against her sides. She tried to reclaim the cadences of her practical lawyer persona, “You can’t possibly _still_ think that this Agarthan Cult is a social media hoax!”

Felix’s nostril-flare recalled their conversation months ago when the Agarthans first started trending. _It’s part of my job not to jump at shadows_ , he had said. Well, they were certainly more than shadows now. They had faces, matching tattoos, and one of them had gotten too close.

“Just tell me what’s wrong. When you’re on your game, that man would have lost his arm before touching Blaiddyd.”

“I silenced the threat. I’ve already answered to everybody for this.” Annoyed, Felix tracked Ingrid’s expressions as they transitioned from frustration to concern.

“And what if you were too late? What if there’s something else you miss?”

The final expression was sadness, and it hit Felix like a flat-palmed strike to the throat. For her, this wasn’t just about saving the King. It was about their friends, their ragged fates. It was about keeping them all safe and sound in an uncertain future. Felix might be in charge of their security, but Ingrid had her own ways of protecting everyone she loved.

“I won’t,” he assured her, and he settled the pen on the desk.

“Good. Stay focused, Fraldarius.” The tail of her long blond braid floated like a hornet’s sting from his office. As the door shut, Felix dropped his head into his hands.

* * *

Fhirdiad greened slowly through the early spring. Hardy narcissus blossoms were the first to puncture the late snows. Once the ice storms yielded to gentler nightly frosts, weeds and prickly prairie grasses began to fill in.

The people filled in too. It always began with the runners who champed at the bit to abandon their sterile treadmills. Hikers with their snowshoes cut-out from work at 4pm to hit the foothills and dig through the remaining snows. Foolhardy street performers claimed their intersections, where Jugglers wearing kilts vied with the oil-chested fire-breathers for the busiest foot-traffic.

If Felix had hoped to see Byleth as soon Spring came around, his disappointment was sore and soundless. Other buskers occupied the parks, their cheerful pop covers luring the passersby. Many were successful. A highlander with bag-pipes commanded a gathering every time. Perfectionist violins played their solos, pale imitations of Byleth’s viola. It didn’t relax his harsh chest; it didn’t soften his jaw; it didn’t slow his steps.

Even online, viola solos were scarce. The ones he did find were bombastic, frilly. Felix scoured for that same sorrowful sound that he remembered. He was forced to resort to modern pieces, brave music that held its notes until they grew ragged and frayed on the horsehair. 

The viola’s voice was a liability. Alone in his condo, air-tight in his own security, these sounds enticed Felix to think and dream and remember:

_His back had been turned when the gunshot cracked._

_He had known loud sounds before: heavy machinery, inhuman screeches of metal and explosives, car bombs that blew the day to orange haze. In contrast, the gunshot was not nearly loud enough. The thing that made it ring in his ears—and ring and ring and ring forever like tinnitus—was how sudden it had been._

_The sound wasn’t enough warning for anyone but Rodrigue, who had thrown Blaiddyd to the floor. Rodrique, who had kneeled over his Prince with the bullet in his own chest, looking like a man about to be knighted._

_When Felix whipped around, he watched his father fall. He watched Dedue knock the brain-washed girl—Blaiddyd’s would be assassin, his father’s killer—to the ground. As if through a macro lens, he saw his own gun find the girl. And that crack again—that too slow, too immediate, too loud and not-nearly-loud-enough crashing ballistic crack._

_It had been less than a month later that Felix took up his father’s old position. He was the shield; he was the protector._

* * *

Felix tuned Sylvain’s voice in and out, as the other man gabbed about the banquet he was calling _the biggest PR event of the year_. Sylvain dropped important details; however, every useful morsel was bogged down in a dozen useless digressions.

“The flower arrangements will be big.” Sylvain gestured a mushroom cloud with his hands. “We’re importing them from the Leicester lowlands. They bloom early over there.” Felix humphed. It was a toss-up, whether Sylvain was referring to flowers or women.

“Are the arrangements large enough to hide a bomb?” Felix asked at the end of his patience.

“What,” the red-head pivoted in his perch on Felix’s desk. “No bomb, why? Was there—“

A threat? Just the one in Felix’s expression. “Then save it for the event planners, Sylvain! I only asked you for the banquet floorplan.”

“Well okay, Fe.” Sylvain waved off Felix’s huffy glare and sent a pile of papers skimming across the desk. “I have it right here, as well as the staff list. Some of the caterers and musicians aren’t confirmed yet.”

“Musicians?” Felix asked. He could feel his eye twitch.

“A quartet called Azure Moon. I still need to get the members’ names so your department can run background checks.” Sylvain knocked on Felix’s desk with his fist to ask, _anything else?_

“Good,” Felix said in dismissal. Azure Moon?

* * *

The Spring banquet was every bit as grand as Sylvain had promised, and each element of grandeur added to Felix’s list of chores.

He had all hands on deck for his security retinue. This included many of his plain-clothes ace-in-the-hole agents, and a fair number of Crested sorcerers from the academy. Only Felix knew who was security and a who was a guest. He marked threats over his concealed mic. Dedue shadowed Blaiddyd, as if Felix had any say in it. His own position was as a roamer—surveying, watching, and listening.

Service occupied a wide corner of the banquet hall. Trained staff kept tally of each guest’s champagne consumption, as they filtered through the room balancing trays laden with finger-foods. The far corner was set up for the Azure Moon quartet. The musicians were late, as they were wont to be. They tuned quickly and played quietly, creating nothing more than a background murmur.

Felix kept his back turned to Byleth. Yes, Byleth.

He didn’t fail to notice how Byleth’s dress was a soft gray that matched the rest of the musicians, or the way the monochrome and contrast gave her hair a splendid shine. Just hearing her tune up, his mind’s eye recalled hiking the cliffs above Fraldarius. He remembered his brother’s catty grin, as he reported that it was only fifty more feet of elevation climb to the summit. Felix shook the memory from his head.

Out of all the quartet, Byleth had positioned herself as far from the mics and equipment as possible. When he wasn’t standing near, Felix could hardly hear her, which served him just as well. The quartet fell into a pattern of playing three pieces, taking a short break, and then playing another three. During breaks Byleth talked to one of the violinists, a free-spirit with long light-purple hair.

He had known that she would be there, of course. Azure Moon was the first group listed on the back of her little contact card, which had earned a permanent spot beside his home computer. He had also known that when he saw her, it would elevate his job from rote action to a source of anxiety. So, he kept his back turned.

The early banquet was a milling of guests, a flutter of finger-foods from argent trays into the mouth. Champagne in delicate flutes washed down each amuse bouche. The women wore sequins on their long gowns. They bared their backs.

Felix kept his eye on two men with the Agartha tattoo peeking from the collar of their shirt. They should have worn ties to conceal the tattoos. One had even popped a button—was this a threat? An open declaration? None of the men with the Agartha tattoos were approaching Blaiddyd.

Silently, he begged Dimitri to stop greeting people and begin the dinner. The milling about would end, the musicians would be dismissed, and Felix’s job would become much easier.

Amidst the festivities, the musicians sat again for another round. This was a rolicking rondo, taking and passing variations of a familiar highland folk tune that reminded Felix of festivals in Fraldarius. Then, as the melody was passed to the violist, she took it over with all of the passion from her parkside solos. Again, he recalled the cliffs from his home, his teenage brother standing at the summit, celebrating with arms outstretched.

Her playing grew stronger, until the microphones above them squealed softly. The stage-lights above the quartet flickered. Even the little speaker in Felix’s ear gave a light squeal. Then, the violist immediately quieted her playing, drifting back into those whispers that he could barely hear.

The time for commingling was winding down, and some of the nobles had already taken their seats. The musicians ended early and enjoyed the promised refreshments. Felix watched Byleth take a glass of champagne with no food. Her expression was rattled, frowning. And then, Felix realized he was doing exactly what he shouldn’t: he was staring. 

Byleth’s head shot up, and she looked right into his eyes. He deserved that, he thought, as he turned his head away. He walked to a position that allowed him to track the four people surrounding Blaiddyd.

But, even as he did, he felt as much as noticed Byleth moving closer to him, and her presence sent nerves crawling up his arm. One of his men stopped a woman from touching Dimitri’s arm—so far so good.

“Hi Felix,” Byleth said. “I told you we’d see each other again.” She began smiling but shuttered it quickly, when he returned was a stony stare. “Weren’t you going to say hi?”

Felix turned off his mic, knowing by the grimaces around the banquet hall that he had sent loud thuds through the ears of his security staff. “Hi.”

He took Byleth in professionally. His profiling told him that she was in her late twenties/early thirties, had likely not had children, knew a little hand-to-hand self-defense, and appeared to have no weapons on her person, aside from a horse-hair bow that could be used for some ineffectual jabbing. Altogether, she presented no immediate threat to Blaiddyd.

“I thought you might be here...”

“It’s my job to be here.” His eyes roved back to Blaiddyd. There was some whispering in his ear about the approaching party of journalists.

“Mine too tonight,” she quirked him a little smile that she quickly retracted. “Don’t you want to talk?”

Felix bit the inside of his cheek. A couple months absence wasn’t enough time to forget Byleth. However, it was plenty of time to gain perspective on what she was—and what she was wasn’t good for him.

“I’m trying to do my job. I don’t have time to talk to some vagabond.” The journalists shuffled closer to Blaiddyd. Dedue stood forward to keep them at a distance.

“Some what?—What did you call me?” And yet, he hadn’t prepared himself for that vulnerability to creep back into her eyes.

It was okay to do this. He could pretend that he hadn’t looked for her every morning since the snow began to melt. He could act like there weren’t a dozen email drafts addressed to her in his personal inbox. And that every time he hit his punching bag, he didn’t pretend it was the face of Byleth’s would-be attacker. And that afterwards, in the shower, he didn’t fantasize all the ways she might show her gratitude.

“You’re a traveling musician, Byleth. You’re a vagabond.”

“So that’s how you think of it?”

Her fists were balling the material of her skirt. He imagined those same fists wrapping themselves into his teal button-down, mussing up his careful ponytail. She could keep the anger—it was hot. He shook his head to dislodge thoughts of Byleth’s lips, Byleth’s—

“Indeed,” he said, “please excuse me. And enjoy the party.”

Her narrowed eyes told him that, if only she had her bow in hand, she would think nothing of stabbing him through. Then, she walked away to talk to her lavender-haired violinist. 

As soon as this terrible mingling part of the evening was over, he could split the room into quadrants. He could mentally graph all the guests. It would all become very clear and structured.

Felix turned his mic back on. He wanted nothing more than to get back to Blaiddyd’s side. Counteracting an assassination attempt seemed like the only thing that would make him feel better.

Ingrid came to stand with him, her hand supporting a laden plate of hors-d'oeuvres. “That man over there, same tattoo as the other Agarthans.” She gestured by jerking her head. Ingrid had dressed up for the occasion and wore her hair loose from its long braid. It was a mercy, since she drew less attention this way.

“Yeah, I see him too. He’s been looking at Blaiddyd but hasn’t made a move so far.” He wondered what Byleth would think, seeing him with Ingrid. Would she jump to the wrong conclusions?

“Shouldn’t you kick him out already?”

“No, there are at least four of them, confirmed, and two more suspects. They seem to be scouting.” Ingrid stared around widely. “I’m having them tailed.”

The lawyer shifted her eyes to the man she had first mentioned. This time, she noticed little gray-haired Ashe, Felix’s favorite and most unobtrusive assassin, standing mere feet from him. Ashe was feigning deep interest in a conversation with the sorceress Annette who was tailing another of the Agarthan Cult.

“Stop looking.” Felix’s voice was quiet. When Ingrid turned her eyes back to him, he was glancing over his own shoulder in a very un-Felix-like motion at the musicians.

“So, who was that, then?” Ingrid pivoted her body creating a line of sight between the green-haired musician and Felix.

“No one.”

Byleth was free. Byleth could get drunk on champagne and it wouldn’t hurt her job. It would probably only make her playing better, more expressive.

“Did you sleep with her?”

“No.” 

Byleth could go wherever she wanted, talk to whomever she wanted. Byleth didn’t have to consider whether her every action put their King in the line of fire. She hadn’t come from a legacy of people who had died for him.

“I would have.” Ingrid’s eyebrows raised a positive appraisal, but she was immediately blushing. Felix guessed that she had already consumed her second glass of champagne. “She looks like she would need a solid meal first, though.”

Byleth was reckless, a force of chaos. He was much better off without her. And without him, she could stay free.

“You’re not hung up on her, are you—a violinist?”

“It’s a viola.”

He hated Ingrid’s pitying look and the way she chewed a candied fig while considering him. “You know what you’re supposed to do. Go to a bar, drop hints about your powerful position, get a girl for the night, work out all that tension,” she made a disgusted face as she gestured at Felix’s whole person. “Disappear and let it go.”

“You sound like Sylvain.” Felix kept his back to Byleth, wishing that the staff would see the musicians out already.

“No, Sylvain would be much worse. I’m just being practical.” Practical, whip-smart, efficient, clear-headed, all true, but Ingrid wasn’t know for being subtle or romantic. “Did you see what happened earlier when the lights flickered?”

Felix waved it off, mumbling _old electricity, loose plugs_. He thought he knew the cause, but he didn’t want Ingrid to investigate more. “I haven’t forgotten the last person you fell for. An opera starlet? How is this any different?”

“It’s not, and that’s why I’m trying to save you.” He wished she would stop staring at Byleth. “Speak of the devil,” she hissed lightly. Felix turned to take in the horror as Sylvain sidled up to Byleth. The redhead was running a hand through his hair to rough up some attractive flyaways.

Felix felt his pulse raise, and his hand jerked at his side. He drew ragged breaths through his nose. “You’re smitten.” Ingrid whispered, obvious eyes all wide. “You don’t even react this way when a dangerous cult is closing in on your King.”

Felix cursed his luck. Why had he been so mean to Byleth earlier? Now Sylvain’s noticed her—and of course he noticed her—but damn it.

Ingrid grabbed a champagne flute from a nearby server. “Stay vigilant. I’ll go run interference, just this once. But you have to meet me for drinks at the Lion’s Den after all this.” She waved her hand distastefully at the banquet.

“Deal,” Felix said through a jaw clenched so tight he might have broken teeth. He watched her march on Sylvain, all Champagne-bubble smiles.

* * *

Deals with Ingrid were always binding contracts.

As Blaiddyd’s private bar, the Lion’s Den was the only place that the King and his cabinet could spend their time freely. Felix had arranged every detail of its impregnable security. And yet, even there, Felix was bound to his position, as he measured his sips of alcohol to never get drunk. He wasn’t the only one who remained alert, but he was perhaps the only one who resented it.

The bar murmured. Since Felix observed the security clearance of everyone who came and went, and he tended to pick guards who were reliable and kept their traps shut. If some of Dimitri’s stony-faced security detail shared an after work beer before re-entering homes where they couldn’t spill a word, it was in low tones.

_… They believe in a paradise inside the Earth run by some kind of ‘World King’ … Maybe some believe that occult bullshit but most of these Agarthans are thugs pummeling for power …_

Felix nursed a weak cocktail that tasted more like ice-melt than whatever he had ordered. He grimaced and went for more. He didn’t drink often, but tonight was a different story.

_… You think they want to coup Blaiddyd with this ‘World King’? …_

His eyes traced Dimitri who sat with some of his advisers discussing the Agarthan menace, and was relieved when Ingrid left his and Sylvain’s table to join in the conspiracy theories. 

_… I bet they’re just disenfranchised from Duscar looking to stir up trouble… It isn’t Duscar… No one at the banquet was from Duscar… I can’t put my finger on it, but something about them gave me the creeps …_

Felix found himself leaning forward across the table. “At the banquet, you talked to the woman with the green hair—the musician?” At his side, his hand fidgeted the latch of his favorite knife.

“The musician,” Sylvain drawled out slow and dreamy. He was already in his cups from the champagne at dinner. “Lovely to look at but she was so sour.” Sylvain winked down at his drink—a whiskey sour.

“What do you mean?” Felix asked.

Sylvain raised his eyebrows as he registered Felix’s interest. “Well, it was kind of like how you can be sometimes.”

“Don’t tease me, Sylvain,” the younger man said, and he realized he was still leaning forward.

“I just mean, she wouldn’t crack a single smile or laugh at all. She just seemed kind of vacant.” 

“Huh…” He stopped picking at his knife and settled back into the booth. His nervous energy was barely satisfied by twirling a metal straw in his almost-virgin, mostly ice-melt drink. Felix had always found her to be animated.

* * *

Days passed without strings in the park. Felix hated the bag-pipe man. He had almost sent Byleth groveling emails twice. Though he couldn’t bring himself to beg, it was impossible not to dwell on how stupid it was to waste Byleth’s time in Fhridiad with brooding. 

Spring was growing warmer. The morning no longer held frost, and Felix started wearing his lighter jacket for the commute.

Then on a completely unpromising Monday, when he stepped past the Sorcery Academy, he heard strings. The high-pitched trilling wasn’t Byleth’s usual tone, but he couldn’t be sure. It had been too long since he heard her play solo.

When he reached the park, he found that the source of the music was skilled, but it wasn’t Byleth. Instead, Felix saw the purple-haired violinist who had been at Dimitri’s banquet. “Hey, have you come to listen?” The man asked. Raising his bow with a flourish. “I take requests.”

Felix shook his head, muttering a little too loudly, “Needs more viola.”

“Oh, you know, I recognize you—from that big banquet.” He snapped his fingers around his bow and gave Felix a knowing smile. “You must be looking for By, huh?”

“Byleth? Do you know where she is?”

“She was supposed to be here now.” The man tossed his bow in the air and caught it. “No use calling her. She’ll probably show up sooner or later.”

“Can you let her know I was looking for her?”

“Sure, should I refer to you as something other than King Blaiddyd’s surly security guard?”

“That’ll do,” Felix grunted.

He joined the stream of morning commuters up to the Capitol. Everything was normal. Everything was boring, until something—someone?—came rushing at him up the hill. He let a knife slip from the latch on his arm into his hand. An ambush was everything his morning needed. He stopped midstream, limbs loose.

And if he wasn’t trained to notice things, this story might have ended tragically right then. He might have attacked the assailant without waiting to see who they were or why they were rushing him.

Luckily, Felix did notice the streak of green. The awkward instrument case bouncing on his assailant’s back looked less like a gun case with every foot forward.

“Were you,” she puffed out her breath from running uphill and stopped a few feet away, while annoyed commuters marched onward at either side, “looking for me?”

“Yes.” The word was his deepest declaration. He imagine taking her in his arms, spinning her around like characters from a romantic comedy and whispering his apologies into her mouth. He might have done it, too, if there wasn’t a knife still in his hand. He jerked his head sideways to indicate the mouth of an alley. As they moved, he surreptitiously refastened the knife against his arm.

Byleth’s viola case was strapped to her back, and she was walking with her hands in her pockets. She wore a pair of trousers and a tight blouse that offered a vivid reminder of Felix’s shower-time fantasies. More than that, though, she looked tired. Felix absorbed the soft bags under her eyes that hadn’t been there even in the dead of winter. Her face had a boniness that told him she wasn’t eating properly.

If he had paid attention to any of this at Blaiddyd’s banquet, he wouldn’t have been able to dismiss her so easily. He had used his profession as a shield. But there was no shield now.

“So what is it?” She played the tough guy well. Cold expression, check. Scowling eyes, check. Enticingly cute hair-tugging, check. “Make it good. I don’t chase just anyone down.”

“I wanted to apologize.” He unclenched his jaw and the words came out in a huff, “I’m sorry about how I brushed you off.”

She considered it while she tugged at her hair. Her deliberation took an eternity. “You were right. I do live like a vagabond. I just didn’t like how you said it.”

“I was thinking about that,” He spoke slowly with a hand up at his face to mask the intensity. “In another life, if I wasn’t so tied down, I could see myself living like that too.”

Byleth’s soft laugh jerked his head up. “The Special Agent with the heart of stone? I don’t see you living like a leaf on the wind, but I could be wrong.” They considered each other for a moment: his order and her chaos. How easy it was to yearn for those opposites.

“Your job seems stressful,” she offered as her own apology, and he laughed into the understatement. “So, what? You’re going to buy me coffee? Tell me that my clothes aren’t appropriate for the weather?”

“Your clothes are fine.” His eyes flicked down to the flimsy fabric of her blouse and its too many open buttons. She really should have been wearing an undershirt. “Forget coffee.” He forced himself to look at the tired lines between her eyes. “I’m going to buy you a meal. Lunch, or,” he checked his watch, “brunch now.”

“Now that’s an offer I can’t resist.” The corner of her mouth quirked upward, a hint of her old mischievous smile.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _I am this great, unstable mass of blood and foam_   
>  _And no one in her right mind would make my home her home_   
>  _My heart's an[autoclave](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sskFjbHu_W0)_


	3. Mid-Spring (of the Jewel-like Blossoms)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Alternate title for this chapter: Byleth gives the Blue Lions music therapy

To anyone watching, it would seem that Spring germinated from Byleth’s footsteps. Where she played, snap-peas dug curling tendrils into Fhirdiad’s gray stonework. Morning-glories and violets bloomed by her favorite benches. Where Byleth sat on the park walls, soft grasses overtook Faerghus’s usual nettles and reached up to her dangling feet.

The musician’s original melodies—the _places to rest_ and the _gazing at Sirius_ —grew flowers, and her folk music grew heather from the North and sunflowers from the South. One corner of the garden had even become the inhospitable residence of a desert cactus bedecked in long spears.

No one had ever seen the park turn into a meadow like this. Birds swooped in to forage seeds from the ground, after snacking on unlucky insects drawn to the colorful flowers. The birds weren’t pretty or rare, but they were a sure sign of life that the city-dwellers desperately needed.

It turns out, Byleth knew the bag-pipe man, an old friend of her father’s named Alois. A soldier who had gone to seed, Alois lived with his family in Fhirdiad. Some mornings on his way out of the park, he tossed off jokes. Each punchline bounced over Byleth’s head, and she had the sense that their meanings had been lost from the cultural collective years ago.

When he had time, Alois would play along with Byleth, offering buzzing drones to rumble below her melodies. He requested this folk-tune or that and swayed his head, as her playing recalled his youth of roaming the hills and dales of Faerghus. His memories pondered on cheiftans long-perished, hiking among the heather and through the tempests, his fishing rod once plopping into the water next to Jeralt’s before his boyish laughter had scared away the coveted Salmon of Wisdom—

* * *

Dawn had barely broken the morning, and Felix sat in the grass against the halfwall, as exotic flowers tickled his hayfever. Eyes shut, he leaned his head back against the stone. Byleth stood nearby playing her music.

Her fingers trilled from her usual warmup to something slower and deeper. The viola’s throat vibrated out the hollow tones of mountain breezes. Each bow stroke was the density of the pulpy leaves belonging to those hardy succulents that only grow at high altitudes. Felix knew them well, their little white flowers the only sight for sore eyes above the treeline.

As she played, Felix thought of Glenn picking one of those very succulents and scrutinizing it. At the time, Felix had been eyeing the cliff that he and Glenn would have to free-climb if they were to go any further on their hike. Glenn, he had known, would have an easy time of it, but Felix was already mapping out the handhold and footrests that his shorter legs and less developed muscles would need to pull himself up. _…This could be medicinal…_ Glenn had muttered, as much to himself as to a distracted Felix, and he put the flower and some of its leaves into a specimen bag—

As Byleth finished the tune, her bow lifted from the string in a skittering way that sent errant sounds straight up Felix’s spine. He cracked one eye open.

“Hello,” a voice, squeaky and familiar, addressed the musician from the other side of the wall. “That piece you were playing, it reminds me of a story I’ve read.”

Felix stood in one quick motion. “Ashe.”

“Agent Kyphon!” Ashe squeaked. “I didn’t know you were down there.”

“We’re not on duty—just call me Felix.” 

Byleth hooked her bow onto the hand holding the viola. It swung there, as she held her left hand out to Ashe. The sniper looked briefly confused, but he was a skilled shot with both hands and was quick to offer his left in return. “I’m Byleth,” she said.

“Is it your day off?” Felix took in Ashe’s plainclothes: a patterned button-down, a leather bomber jacket, and comfortable jeans. His eyes flicked over the two guns on the sniper’s belt.

“Day off? What’s that mean?” The man joked, brushing aside some gray hair that was at odds with his soft and youthful features. Ashe’s open face was a simulacrum of what it had once been, when he was the young police recruit who Felix had taught not to fear the dark.

When they had first met, they were paired for a drug bust and tasked with searching through the dark attic of the Sorcery Academy’s chemistry building. That was back when Felix had been just another one of his father’s agents. When Ashe had started shaking and squeaking at imaginary specters in the attic, Felix had told him, _Don’t think about what might be there. Listen for what is._ He’d held the sniper’s loyalty ever since. 

Byleth shot Felix an annoyed glare. “Stop harassing the people who come to listen to me,” she said.

He nodded curtly and humphed his way back into the grass. Ashe’s small smile was holding back a dam of amusement. It took a lot of guts to talk to Agent Kyphon like that, and for Felix to actually listen?

“You’re right,” Byleth was saying. “That melody is based on an old poem.”

“About a group of saints that lived in a monastery.” The man’s voice flooded now with boyish enthusiasm.

“The ancient ruins of the monastery at Garreg Mach, from before the Normans—”

“—Before the Romans, either. There was a fertility goddess, what was her name again?” He snapped his fingers, trying to recall, and Byleth heard the snapping fall into the rhythm of the tune she had been playing.

“Sothis. The goddess was Sothis, and her saints were the subject of the song. They were warriors and magicians...”

“You really know your legends!” Ashe squeaked, eyes blazing with excitement.

“Folk tunes are like the bones of nature. My dad and I were always picking up new ones as we traveled. Everywhere you go there’s history and humans, always finding ways to commemorate the temporal. We have all these stories to help us remember what’s important, or what seemed important at the time...”

“That all makes sense to me. You know, you’d be a good teacher,” Ashe said. “Do you mind playing that song again? I think I can almost remember the words of that poem.”

As Byleth began playing, orange poppies grew against Felix’s legs. Their spreading blooms made him sneeze.

Ashe sat above on the half-wall. The music took over the sniper’s mind, scrolling through his recollections. First, it directed him to the poetry he was looking for. Then, he relaxed into memories.

He saw himself growing up a nervous pickpocket, before he was taken in by the kindly Lord Lenato. Well intentioned though she was, Byleth’s playing called up Ashe’s greatest failings. He recalled the illness of his dear Lord Lenato who was gripped by corrupting ideologies and conspiracy theories that had poisoned him up until his final breath—

The memories dwelled where the dark parts of Ashe’s heart festered, but Byleth’s song eased them out slowly, shining a light on the past. The light was one of understanding. It reminded him that all human events are complex, and perhaps it was his task to feel all the different parts of it at once: the pain and loss, the betrayal and regret, and the soft sweetness of the memories that are worth keeping despite all the rest.

“Thank you,” Ashe said when she stopped playing. He tugged the ribbed sleeve of his jacket against the corner of his eye. “I need to go now, but thank you. I feel good after that, better than I’ve felt in a long time.” From his seat below, Felix smiled to himself and rubbed a spot of pollen on his pants.

“I’ll join you.” Felix rose and vaulted cleanly over the wall.

“Goodbye,” Byleth called to the sniper and the blade, as they walked away up the hill, looking more at ease than they had in years. Felix imagined that he could catch the word out of the air, a little ghost of Byleth to tuck inside his pocket.

* * *

Word leaked like the Spring showers that drove Byleth to play under bright awnings for the crowds of tourists who mulled through the coffeeshops. Word spread like the pale green that was overtaking the city, as soft moss fuzzed between paving stones, and algae creeped against the fountain mosaics.

The word was out, and it wasn’t Ashe who had been talking about Felix’s violist, because Ashe knew how to keep his mouth shut. If Felix had bothered investigating, he would have found that the source of the word was Sylvain.

Sylvain had tracked Byleth down at the park. It took a mere two minutes of listening to her play to massage over his negative impression from the banquet. This musical Byleth, he concluded, held no resemblance to a sour lemon.

The attractive man’s hair was a red flare surrounded by all the greenery that Byleth had conjured. He sat on the wall, back curved in a slouch, while his nougat-brown eyes staring off into the middle distance. In tandem with Byleth’s whispering strings, Sylvain’s mind treaded back through old memories like a reversing VHS tape, complete with the friction scuffs of moving too quickly through the past.

Byleth played him light, triumphant battle marches and Sylvain’s brain supplied the rest. As she bowed shallowly on the D string, fingers flying like sparks rising from a campfire, Sylvain recalled in flashes a childhood spent avoiding his brother as they grew apart completely. As if from behind a curtain, Sylvain watched as his brother radicalized into a monster he barely recognized—

Of course, Sylvain had also been exposed to the pernicious rumors and ideologies that floated through his childhood home like toxic spores. But _he_ had been given the investment of a future. While Miklan had been dragged by his ankles through a quicksand of inflammatory videos and philosophies of hatred—

While Sylvain rose, Miklan sank. Until, the rogue brother had taken command in the midst of a violent demonstration in front of the capitol. As the arms-race between the cultists and the Kingdom knights had accelerated moment by moment, Baiddyd’s security had made the choice to put down the uprising, Miklan included—

Back in the park, Byleth had been sawing, high-and-low and high-and-low, drawing out a tense contrast that only Sylvain understood. Now, she sank lower on the strings, and Sylvain felt his chest ease.

He remembered celebrations with his friends, the family he _chose_. He recalled learning to ride horses with Ingrid, while the ever-polite Prince Dimitri stood out in the snow until they made it back after a day-long ride. He thought of Felix, young and sweet and blustering his feeling to Sylvain after losing a wrestling match with his brother—

Sylvain warmed as the music hummed through his mind. The faces of his friends filled in the raw gaps and craters that were left behind by everything they had lost. When Byleth pulled the bow through its final pacing and rung some haunting vibrato across the ground, Sylvain was feeling smoothed-out, soft, relieved, reassured. 

* * *

If Felix had tracked the word, he would have known that Annette had caught it from Mercedes. The insightful baker hadn’t forgotten serving coffee to the green-haired musician in the winter, and she couldn’t stop her knowing smiles as Felix brought Byleth back to her bakery in the Spring. She began stocking the cases with fewer confections and more savory, nut-based pastries.

“You know what they say about green-haired people, and a musician to top it off,” Mercedes leaned over the pastry case, long platinum hair escaping its binding.

“Like Rhea?” Annette was practically hopping, thinking of the powerful sorceress who taught the music students at the Sorcery Academy. “Do you think she has it, then, this busker?”

“Well she’s certainly put a spell on Felix,” Mercedes giggled. The baker looked around at her two full tables and cast a faith-magic spell to give the bakery a calming aura.

“Imagine him being distracted by a musician while so much is going on with the city.” Annette nibbled her nutella croissant. “I didn’t think anything would stop Felix from being all business all the time.”

“What’s going on in the city? You mean those threats about the train stations?” The older woman’s eyes went wide in a tacit plea for more information.

Annette lowered her voice. “We can’t tell what the Agarthans are planning. But stopping the trains will cut off reinforcements into the city as well as escape from it.”

“Oh Annie, it all seems like one big scare tactic.”

“I know, but to discount them as scare tactics would be like sealing our grave! I don’t want to be unprepared. Neither does Felix; he’s started bringing in marines from Fraldarius to surround the city.”

“Ah, and that’s also why the sorcery academy has been recruiting magicians from the Leicester provinces.” Mercedes gave the prep counter a perfunctory wipe-down, as if they were merely conversing about the supply of high-protein flour in Fhirdiad.

“Exactly! But you didn’t hear any of this from me!” Annette scrolled through her date-book on her phone. “Are you still available to give that seminar on the Seraphim spell at the academy tomorrow night?”

“I’ve put together an outline and everything. But this musician, Annie! We should go hear her play. I can get Emile to cover the store tomorrow morning.”

“We should!” Annette hopped on one foot.

  
Early the next morning, Mercedes and Annette walked arm-in-arm to the park, where they found the green-haired musician already sprinkling white sap across the metal strings of her viola with a guttural sawing of the bow. Realizing she had an audience, Byleth turned the piece into an upbeat lowland jig.

When she finished a few loops she lifted the bow from the strings, and stepped out of her power-pose. Annette, beset by the childlike urge to dance around singing and completing chores, was feeling a rush of energy and motivation as if she had drank a whole pot of tea. Mercedes was smiling softly, her expression a little too knowing.

“Good morning, do you have a request?” Byleth asked.

“Not at all,” Annette said, “We just like hearing you play.”

The two girls peered around as Byleth began another song, this time one of her original compositions. Knowing what to look for made it easy to see what was happening. They noticed the straightening backs of the passers-by. A mother and child stopped arguing as they approached the music. Someone who was shouting loudly on their phone, suddenly dropped their voice, and said, _Hey, look I’m sorry_.

Annette let her mind drift to making sweets in the kitchen with her mother. It was a rose-tinted memory. She and her mother had cooked together constantly when she was growing up, even though Annette was never very good at it. It helped to assuage the gap left behind when her father had run out on them so many years ago. Although Annette had found her father again—in Dimitri’s service, no less—she rarely talked to him. Perhaps, she wondered, would this be a good day to reach out?—

Mercedes, for her part, was thinking about her brother, who was working his way through a difficult post-rehab acclimation process. Mercedes did whatever she could to make things easier on Emile, but sometimes he seemed so bleak. Today, though, she decided that she would sit him down with tart raspberry sorbet—they both preferred peaches, but those wouldn’t be in season until the summer—

As Byleth played, little vines twined upward around the bench near where Mercedes was standing. Byleth trilled a bridge in between the loops of a playful theme, and Mercedes watched the end of the vine bud. Then, as Byleth played her way into another loop, it bloomed into a small flower, which withered as the area below the flower swelled. The berry borne on the vine began pale and condensed. The more Byleth played, the more it reddened and swelled. Mercedes’ lips tilted upward into a smile, as she plucked the fresh raspberry, fully ripe in a matter of moments, from the vine.

“Should we get going?” she asked, while Annette stuffed money and cute hair pins and most of the contents of her purse into Byleth’s viola case.

“We’ll be back to hear you play another time, okay?” Annette called, still buzzing with energy. Byleth nodded and trilled her gratitude as the women walked away.

* * *

The musician’s next guest was the reserved woman she had met at King Blaiddyd’s banquet. Byleth had first seen her talking to Felix, before she had come over, smiling then, to introduce herself as Ingrid.

Ingrid took her lunch break as an opportunity walk down the hill to Byleth’s perch. She listened quietly, not wanting to draw attention to herself as she finished her sandwich. Ingrid’s quiet actions reminded Byleth of Felix—each movement reserved and carefully considered.

“Good to see you again,” Byleth said when she bounced the bow from the string. Taking seat on the wall, she propped the viola upright between her legs. Then, Byleth gave the stones next to her a little pat, inviting Ingrid to sit.

As the women talked, Byleth plucked the strings idly, creating a muffled pizzicato of an old highland tune. It was slow and steady, a work of thought and care.

“How long will you be in Fhirdiad?” Ingrid asked.

“For the rest of Spring. I have a contract in Derdriu come summer, but right now Azure Moon has been doing well across the city. Much thanks to the renown we garnered from the King’s Banquet.”

Ingrid tracked Byleth’s plucking fingers. She knew that tune, but she couldn’t place it. Had it been something from Fraldarius, something Glenn used to hum? Had Byleth picked it up from Felix?

“How are you liking your stay in Fhirdiad, then?”

“It’s much more welcoming this year than in the past.” Byleth’s smile was as soft as it was small. “I have people stopping to listen to me at all hours.”

“You don’t say,” Ingrid answered absently.

The musician’s plucked melody was casting daydreams that threw Ingrid’s normally logical mind into confusion. It reminded her of the mess of conflicting values she used to feel each time her father tried to marry her off, until Dimitri had given her a profitable place as his personal knight. Once she became his personal lawyer, she was able to renew the Galatea estate—

But what was that song that Byleth was plucking? It seemed to have changed the moment Ingrid had stopped paying attention to it. It was still familiar, and yet it lingered just below her recognition. Was this an Adrestian song bouncing on the viola’s neck like syncopated fire? Something that Dorothea used to hum perhaps.

“You’re not the first of Felix’s friends to have visited me.” Byleth’s words came off flat, questioning.

But it had always been Ingrid’s right to ignore subtext. “Word travels fast when something like this happens.”

“Something like what?” Byleth’s words hummed into the sweet lilts of the Southern folk tune.

 _Something like grumpiest man in the city falling for a free-spirited musician with a heart of gold._ “Having a really good musician in town. When it comes to the arts, Fhirdiad is often passed over for Derdriu and Adrestia.”

“I think Fhirdiad has its own charm, though. A harsh charm, sure, but it’s sincere and intense and honest to a fault.” There was no point wondering if she was talking about the city or the man who protected it. The two had become so intertwined in her mind.

As Byleth’s words echoed like a song across the soft plucking, Ingrid found herself recalling Dorothea’s face. It was a face she only saw when she let herself think too far ahead. She remembered that time that Dorothea had rescued her from one of her father’s most erroneous engagement attempts. The fiery singer had brought Felix and Dimitri to kick down the door of the man who had abducted her—

“You’re right, I think.” Ingrid drawled slowly. Byleth could pluck for hours, and Ingrid would have sat there for as long as she played, if they lived in a world where time didn’t matter. That wasn’t, however, the world they inhabited, and each action that they took from the day seemed to count off a chunk of the time available to them. “Well this has been nice, but if there’s nothing else, I should really get back to work.”

Byleth smiled and nodded as Ingrid dropped a few things into the viola case.

Walking back up the hill, Ingrid couldn’t shake the Adrestian tune from her mind. It had lodged itself into her synapses, an _idee fixe_ to divert her too rational ratiocinations toward warmer, softer thoughts: Dorothea’s low-collared and open-backed dresses, the opera singer’s rakish smiles, those deep green eyes that always made Ingrid feel slightly naked and wholly gorgeous. Maybe it was time to pick up the phone again.

* * *

Felix called in late to the office so that he could take his time next to Byleth on the half-wall.

“What’s that?” he asked. Byleth was struggling to poke into the heavily taped corner of a cardboard package.

“Some supplies for my viola. Here, smell it,” she thrust the package into his lap, glad to get rid of the frustrating tape.

Felix gave her a dubious look before lifting the package to his face. But Byleth was right. The scent reminded him of marking his position on a hike by sticking his knife into a pine tree and coming back later to find the cavity filled over with thick sap. “That’s nice,” he said. “What am I smelling?”

“It’s resin for the bow.” She reached out for the box. “Here, I broke my A string, and there’s a full set in there.”

Felix kept the box and shifted to pull out his favorite knife. Opening the blade, he cut through the tape.

“Where did that come from?” Byleth eyed the knife in his hand. It would have been one thing if it were a basic utility knife or even a hunting knife. But the thin black blade in his hand had clearly seen blood.

“If you know, then you’re too close,” Felix smirked.

“Do you always carry weapons?” She took the box back from him, pointedly keeping her hands clear of where he was folding the knife back into itself.

“What part of Head of Security makes that a surprise?” He let her eye where he tucked the knife back into his side.

Byleth laughed hesitantly, but she hadn’t stopped looking at him. In fact, she was staring across his body, as if trying to find each of the places he had concealed weapons.

Though, if she noticed anything, it wasn’t weapons. It was shoulders, broad despite his slighter build, the toned shape of his stomach, lean and corded arms, long athletic legs, and there on his hip, a bulge that must have been a concealed gun. Felix was experienced enough not to drop to his hand to his gun under her scrutiny, but he wasn’t experienced enough to repress the blush that was inflaming his face. He cleared his throat.

The sound brought her eyes back up to his face. And then, as if running in flight, she stared into the cardboard box and began flipping through packets of metal strings.

“I’ve never pulled a weapon on a friend, you know. I would never hurt you.”

She pulled the string out of its paper packet, and balanced the viola on her knee. Her eyes remained focused on threading the wire through its peg and winding it gently, as she said, “and if someone else were to hurt me?”

Without moving his head, he looked at her from the corners of his eyes. “I would kill them.” His voice was even, no hesitation. Byleth shot Felix a look that he knew well. It said, _Holy shit, you’re a psychopath. Why am I sitting with you?_ “Let’s not give me a reason, okay?” His eyes were pleading for more than her safety; they were asking for her understanding.

“You’re so intense,” she whistled, plucking the new string. She winced, and neither of them would know if it was about him or the sour note she just plucked out of the viola.

“And you’re insane.” He didn’t know why he said it, except that it seemed to him the perfect match to his intensity. She tightened the peg another rotation. 

“And yet, here you are with me.” Byleth stood to begin tuning the new A-string, first from the peg and then from the fine tuners below the bridge.

“Who’s going to hurt you, anyway?” Felix asked, narrowing his eyes. He wanted names and addresses. The part of him that was always ready to flip from good-guy to bloody-assassin was toying with the balance.

“Oh! No one!” Byleth lowered the viola from her chin. “No one at all. I’m just having a hard time with the guy I’m renting from.”

“What kind of hard time?” Felix tried to keep his tone even, but his throat was blazing.

“He won’t let me out of our agreement or give my deposit back, despite the conditions of the room being somewhat less than advertised.”

“Maybe I should talk to him.”

“Oh, I don’t think that’s necessary.” She spoke too breezily before running double-stops to check the tuning on the fresh string.

She played through a few pieces while Felix reclined on the wall. Not since he was a child had he let his guard down so much in public. Something about Byleth’s playing made him feel safe, even without his eyes roving around and documenting every little thing.

She played “Fodlan Winds” an octave below her normal, riding low on the G- and C-strings for the first loop before bringing it up to its normal register. Felix let his mind dream back to the scrubby cliffs of Fraldarius, which overlooked the sea. The cliffs were carved out by riptides and winds so high that they could take a child’s feet for a ride. As he dreamed, a brilliant yellow poppy grew on a long stem up to where he was resting. When it flicked open its crinkled petals, Felix let out a mighty sneeze.

He sat up, as Byleth gave one last trill for fun before glissandoing down G and untucking the viola from her chin.

“I should go to work,” Felix groaned. He dragged his hand across the back of his hair to make sure the ponytail was still tight and clean. “What are you doing tonight?” He took the hair tie out of the mass of deep blue and reformed it into an even tighter hold.

“I have a favorite pub.” Byleth watched the security agent put his hair up, all movements spare and efficient.

“So that’s what you do?” _Find a girl at a bar_ , Ingrid had said. _Drop hints about being important. Take her home._

“You want to come out with me?” Byleth gave her eyebrows a playful wiggle.

 _Yes—but no—but yes._ “I don’t drink much. It’s not a luxury for those who constantly have to watch the King’s back.”

“And are you watching his back tonight?” The wiggling eyebrows had become a full challenge, telling him that he was being a stick-in-the-mud if she ever saw one.

“Fortunately not.”

“Then I’m getting you drunk. You have to relax sometime. And now I can get the bill.” She gestured to a half-full tip jar.

“You’d have to fight me for it.” The best part was, she looked like she just might.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Byleth, please stop growing poppies up Felix’s nose. He has terrible allergies.


	4. Late Spring (of Verdant Green)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Expanded the word-count on this chapter because I needed some fun. This might be the most pent up thing I’ve ever written.
> 
> Thanks everyone who's been supporting this story!

Byleth liked her humor black, the same way he liked his coffee. Otherwise, how could she describe this termite-lair as ‘less than advertised’ and not 'a fucking murder joint'?

The building’s outdated facade hung from brickwork like scabs of dead skin. The foundation sunk on its last leg with chewed-up firmament. If the front entrance ever had a lock, it had been ransacked along with the bronze ornaments, leaving the door to sag on rusty hinges.

Felix, ever the stoic, merely shook his head on his way up the creaking stairs. He ignored the dubious noises conspiring behind the doors until he reached the one where Byleth was staying. Her viola paced behind the door expelling uncharacteristically stuttering notes.

The lighting in the hallway flickered as Felix knocked on a door that was too crumpled for the deadbolt to make contact with the jamb. The sound of the knock wisped through wind-tunnels drilled by a horde of termites.

This wasn’t Byleth’s first roach hovel, and it probably wouldn’t be her last. She derived a hunter’s pride from crushing the exoskeletons of insects.

And here’s why. Byleth knew that _home_ was one of the big questions: big like existence and meaning and purpose; big like sovereignty and justice.

And Byleth didn’t want to answer the big questions. She kept to the technicalities of her post, such as when to switch strings on a long run of notes versus when to shift up the viola’s neck, when to find the high-E on the A-string, or when to use the ghost-breath of a harmonic. Byleth did not need _home_ because she was content to live in music. And if music asked the big questions of her, it did so in a call-and-response that she could answer with notes and more notes.

Hearing the knock, Byleth immediately called for him to enter—no _who’s there?_ , no peeking through the blackened peephole. Not answering about the bigger questions (big: like safety and security) also meant not fearing them, and that was just stupid. Felix intended to talk to her about that, but first, “That piece.”

Byleth scrubbed a fist, still holding her bow, across her forehead as the lights flickered again. “Please don’t judge it yet. It’s a big piece, a work-in-progress, and it’s been hard on me.” Byleth cradled the viola in one arm and used a shod foot to direct a curious roach away from the instrument case.

“Hard on you? Why?” Felix rubbed the back of his head. How to tell her that she won’t be living here any longer if he had to forcibly remove her from the premises?

“I still have much to learn,” she said as if on trial, as she bent to clasp the viola in its case. Crouching, she looked up at Felix, and her expression softened, “It just takes a lot of energy.” She plucked a broken hair from the bow. The lights flickered again.

“What are you calling it?” Felix asked to keep her busy, while he looked around the apartment for signs of shoddy electrical work.

“‘Between Heaven and Earth’. Felix, what are you looking for?” Byleth’s suspicious tone was like a sharp swipe on the cheek.

“The lights are flickering.”

“They do that when I play.” The case shut tight, Byleth began grabbing her things for the evening, as Felix’s focus paced the room. “It’s not the wiring. It’s me—I’m the jinx.”

“At the banquet…” he said, watching Byleth’s skirt sway around her thighs as she grabbed a sweater.

“You saw that?” She tugged his sleeve to pull him from the room. “I got in trouble for making those speakers squeal.” Grimacing, she took out a key.

“Pointless, that lock doesn’t work.” He scowled at the outside of the door. “What do you mean ‘in trouble’?”

“The others didn’t drop me, but it was touch-and-go for a moment. It’s not a good look—screwing up in front of the King.” She sighed, shoulders rising and falling with a drama that she managed to keep out of her voice. “Anyway, let’s get out of here.”

She led Felix from the backstreets to a small downtown. Buskers entertained from street corners, some saluting Byleth as she walked by. A fortune teller tried to lure Byleth to sit down with her by calling that she could sense the goddess within her. Arm-in-arm pedestrians ducked into nighttime bars that had been cafes just a few hours ago.

Byleth shook it off like water from a duck. Felix was losing his mind.

And here’s why. Commuters were _casual_ —everyone moved predictably. Surveillance tended to be his _normal_ —Felix remained a fixed point while the human mob whirlpooled and eddied into their predictable patterns. Even battle was merely a _hard_ mode—as he cut through into the eye of a storm. But this street-walking was _maddening_ —like being in the middle of living chaos, beset on all sides by unknown assailants who hopped into view from an obscuring fog.

“Come on,” Byleth grabbed Felix’s wrist. Her hair glowed like luminescent algae in the bright lights, and it didn’t even cross his mind to recoil when she tugged him to match her pace. “My favorite one is this way. You’ll like it—it’s much quieter than all this.”

As they passed closed galleries and antique stores boasting pristine furniture from the era of King Lambert, the street thinned out. “In here,” Byleth’s hand was still gripping his puffy sleeve, as she pulled him into a pub marked by a wooden sign and no neon. It hosted a few booths, a few high tops, and a wooden bar wrapped by seating.

**Drink 1: _Macallan 12_**

If it had been up to Felix, they would have taken a private booth. Instead, Byleth led him right to the center of the wooden bar and settled into a stool. She rested toned forearms on the bartop, as Felix pulled himself in beside her. Byleth signaled the bartender and two generous pours of scotch appeared in front of them. 

Felix fidgeted on the stool and surveyed: zero Agartha tattoos on the clientele, and if anyone was staring at Byleth, it was him.

“Chill, Felix, you’re not on the job right now.” She nudged his dram toward him. “How do you normally relax, anyway?”

“Lately?” _I’ve been scouring the Internet for viola solos._ “Nothing.” He said it down into the glass before taking a sip. “No, wait, that’s not true. I train with a sword, and I box.”

“A sword?” Like one of the brave warriors from her father’s folk tunes. She kept her legs carefully parallel to his at the bar. “Isn’t that a little old-fashioned?” Her eyes crossed Felix, a nervy bundle of well-formed muscle. The back of her throat felt hot, and it wasn’t the whiskey.

“It can be effective under the right circumstances.” Byleth shook her head and grinned down into her dram. The bulbous shape of the glass refracted her smile to double its normal size.

**Drink 2: _Highland Park 12_**

Silence and staring around the bar.

Felix uncrossed his arms from his chest. He unbuttoned and rolled up his shirt sleeves. He rested a forearm on the bar about an inch from where Byleth was folding a small origami flower from receipt paper.

**Drink 3: _Ardbeg 10_**

“By the way, do you have any recordings of your music? It—” He took a sip that sparked campfires right into his brain. “It might relax me. I can pay you for them.”

“I’d send them gratis, you know that. But I’ve never been able to record myself—it’s the jinx thing.” She nudged the origami flower between them. For just a moment, its petals looked like the real thing, thin with fragile veins. “Technology goes haywire around me. Every time I try to record, it makes these loud screeches.”

Felix nodded and took another peaty gulp. “It’s your faith magic.”

“My what?” Byleth bat her fingers on the bartop as if plucking strings only she could see. Felix’s fingers were ripping at the corner of his coaster.

“You have faith magic, lots of it. I noticed the first time I heard you, but I wasn’t sure then. Your music heals people. And in the winter, no one should have lasted outside like that; you must have been protecting yourself from the cold.”

“So that’s why the lights go out when I play?”

“And flowers grow,” Felix barked a strangled laugh. “You’re a fucking menace.” He ran calloused fingers through his hair, pulling long strands out of his hair tie. Slightly disheveled suited him. For once, he was looking comfortable and his eyes stopped glancing throughout the bar. “But you make people feel good, so I guess it’s a worthwhile trade-off.”

“Do all magic users jinx technology like this?” Byleth spun slightly side-to-side on the stool.

“Reason magic doesn’t—it’s considered the basis of most technology—or engineering, at least. Creating fire, combustion… Faith magic, though, comes from life and nature. Faith sorcerers use natural forces to fix living things. Choirs sometimes channel it, so I guess it’s not uncommon among musicians.”

“How do you know all this?”

“Sylvain, my friend—”

“Oh, I know Sylvain! I met him,” she said lighting up.

Felix almost asked, _How well do you know Sylvain?_ but bit it back for a simple, “I’m sure you did.”

Still, she could hear his annoyance. “Did I say something wrong?” Her eyes swiped across Felix’s narrowed expression. “Are you jealous?”

“ _Tch_ , jealousy usually involves piano wire.” Byleth’s eyes bulged. “That’s just Sylvain’s M.O.: you’re beautiful, so he’ll latch onto you.”

Recovering quickly, Byleth smacked him with her impish grin, “What did you call me? Say it again, Felix—”

“So, Sylvain took night classes at the Sorcery Academy. He knows some solid reason magic stuff now, and he used to tell me all about it. Plus, it part of my department to keep track of sorcerers.”

He kicked himself when he watched Byleth’s shoulders contract. She liked her freedom, and he as good as said that he was about to take it away. “Don’t worry,” he amended, “I won’t make you get a permit! Unless you want a Crest at some point. Your secret is safe with me. I trust you not do anything more than keep yourself warm, shut off some lights, and maybe do some gardening.”

“Thanks.” Her eyebrows raised as Felix swigged the dram dry.

“Shit, this burns. They never let me have anything this good.”

Laughter and a light touch on his shoulder, “Slow there, secret agent man.”

“Look who’s talking,” he said as Byleth gestured for another. The bartender wiggled her eyebrows and started pouring.

**Drink 4: _Laphroaig 10_**

The lights had gained the aura of soft halos around them. It was difficult to read specials on the chalkboard behind the bar, as the words swam and letters fuzzed. Noise from tangent conversations grew louder as pub-time compatriots grew drunker. Byleth’s hands were bored.

“You’re sweet, you know. Does anyone tell you how sweet you are?”

Byleth reached out to tuck an unruly piece of hair behind Felix’s ear. When he flinched away, she withdrew the hand to her lap.

“No,” he breathed out hard, “they mostly call me a hateful ass.” She hummed awkwardly while Felix moved his stool closer to hers; the gesture was apologetic. “I’m going to get you out of that room agreement.”

Byleth raised her eyes to his, “I said that wasn’t necessary. I don’t want you running in there with guns and shit. I don’t like the things.” Her fingers snapped against the countertop.

“I don’t like them, either.” He turned heatedly in his seat, so that his knee brushed hers. “I’m a swordsman, remember?”

“So you’re going to charge down my landlord with a sword?”

“Just trust me to handle it.” Byleth was revving up her argumentative glare, but Felix put his hand on her shoulder. “You can get me drunk, but I won’t stop worrying.” He huffed out another heavy breath. “I’m sorry, though—that you find me so unsettling.”

Byleth cracked him a half-smile that turned into a sigh, “I don’t find you that unsettling. I think that, given another life, I would probably be a lot like you.”

A smirk and more hair ruffling, “Maybe you should try training with a sword.” If he had known how disheveled his hair looked, he would have been mortified. “Do you really want to stay in that room tonight?”

“Ummmmmmmmm…” Byleth’s eyes focused on the bottom centimeter of whiskey in her glass, as she shrank into her stool.

“What I mean is—,” he snatched his hand back from her shoulder. “I’m offering my couch—I mean, I’ll sleep on the couch. I—I didn’t mean anything by it—I mean, you don’t owe me anything. And tomorrow, we’d get you a better room. I mean, you’ll get you a better room. So tonight, you could stay at my place, if you don’t want to go back there tonight.”

Byleth’s laughter was a tonic and poison at once. “What bothers you so much about that room?” She watched expressions pass across his face—a medley of desire, vulnerability, anger, kindness, frustration.

“No lock. Flimsy door. Sketchy clientele.” His fingers were flying loosely in the air, ticking off his points. “Sleeping beside mouse traps. Roaches crawling into your viola.”

“It sounds awful when you say it.” As the blurry fingers waved in front of her, she went for it. She fucking went for it. She grabbed his hand out of the air and held it.

His face snapped toward hers, eyes wide and mouth hanging open. And then, he smiled.

**Drink 5: _Lagavulin 16_**

That beautiful fool Felix was capable of downing a man at a single pressure point. He could apply a knife to the neck so quietly that the victim never registered the threat. Felix’s words could be so cold that they collapsed all other arguments. But he knew nothing of whiskey dick.

Their night entered a long pantomime of gestures that Felix would not remember. He would not remember when his knees stopped being parallel with Byleth’s at the bar and started pointing toward hers, or when her knees pointed back toward his until they made an acute angle so tight that their brushing had to be anything but accidental.

He barely registered his hands leaving the curve of his dram to reveal less than a finger of whiskey left. Or the cat-like half-smile he made to the back of the bar suggesting he would order another; that is, if Byleth hadn’t put a coaster over his glass determining that he needed fresh air.

After she leaped down from the stool, taking a tilt against the bar before righting herself, she put too-friendly hands on Felix to pull him from his seat. Felix came up against the bar and against her, and he steadied himself with a hand on her hip rather than on her shoulder. And this alone should have been a clear sign of how far away from his comfort zone she had led him.

But Felix’s drunken state was deceptive. He was normally so graceful and controlled that, even with a head-full, he could still achieve relatively clean movement.

However, his mind was too bleary to consider his hands. He didn’t think about the one hand that had not left Byleth’s hip and was searching softly for the skin it could find in-between skirt and blouse. And he certainly didn’t have the presence of mind to register that she wasn’t batting him away, but instead, she leaned into him as the crutch that helped her walk upright, while she commanded, “Outside.” 

They settled against the brick wall near smokers at whom Felix would normally have glared disdainfully. That night, however, he sipped the murky air that had turned sharp and cold with the sun so long down. It was a welcome respite from his hazy mind and his feverish hands, which had pulled Byleth in front of him and were claiming both her hips. Then the hands moved further back around her body, and the distance between them shrank. Having found her skin, his touch at her back firmed.

Felix’s hands at the dimples of her back drove all other thoughts from her mind. She met his needy touch with need of her own.

Except that, she looked into his face and watched the mead-dripping whiskey of his eyes. She watched them waver across her face, now focusing on her lips, now buzzing toward her eyes, now her neck, now the bricks behind her head—and oh, she had done it. She had gotten him so drunk he couldn’t see straight.

The hand on her lower back, pleasurable though it was, meant nothing more than the universal lust that overtakes the brain when whiskey mixes with late nights and soft skin.

“You,” she said. When she touched his hair this time, he didn’t pull away, and it was soft and dark-like-ink in her hand. And, oh that she could wrap her fist in it and bring his face and his lips and all the molten mead in his eyes home to her lips. _But no, not tonight, not like this._ She chastely tucked the hair behind his ear, as his eyes wavered across her with more desire than she thought a man made of stone could muster. And there was zero promise of relieving that tension, because oh, she knew better. “I need to get you home.” She pulled back from him, and he leaned toward her wobbling a little bit as his hands fell from her hips. “Maybe I overdid it, huh?”

But Felix would not remember.

He would not remember the first fight that Byleth won. Taking the check and tipping the bartender, she winked broadly to save face as she shouldered Felix aside at the bar. Defeated, he leaned his back against the wood and darkly drank the dregs of his whiskey.

When they were out on the street, she asked him if he knew his way home. And the poor man would have been completely lost if a topographical layout of Fhirdiad weren’t an image burned into his brain.

Perhaps it was a mercy that Felix wouldn’t remember how cute she looked, practically swimming in the sports jacket he wrapped around her to cut the chill, while the jacket’s too-broad shoulders flopped down her arms. And her eyes swam through their haze up to him and looked like all the blooming things she had drawn out of the Spring. And he leaned in to kiss her and she pulled away. _Not like this_. And he looked so sad and confused that she almost reached up then to kiss him before his head started to hang. But she stopped herself, _Not like this._

But she held his arm, and they hit a swaying rhythm. Hip brushing hip, they sped through the four turns and six long-ass blocks to his condo. She stood by for him to unravel the rote components of his security. He keyed the pad into the condominium. Two keys unlocked the two bolts on the door, and he entered passwords into the two security systems inside.

Then he grabbed Byleth’s hand, quick and inelegant, and pulled her in. Immediately she had the urge to turnabout into his arms and grind up his leg, but she blew out a heavy breath instead. When he scowled a question at her, she snapped at him, “Go to bed.” Her voice startled a gray cat from the kitchen into Felix’s room.

That was when Byleth had won the second fight that Felix would not remember, as he nudged her into his room trying to make her claim the bed with the most gentlemanly eye-rolling. She grappled back at him until they were both tumbling on the bed. Although he was stronger, he was also drunker, and he had underestimated just how much he needed that horizontal surface.

His head hit the bed and the spins began. The room and Byleth’s face above him seemed to be spinning at different frequencies. The circles weren’t complete but something like 240-degrees one direction and then 220-degrees back the other way. Byleth’s blurry face manhandled him to his pillow. She only undressed his most extraneous clothing, leaving him to sleep with unknown throwing knives in the crook of his arm and his favorite black knife tucked against his side.

For herself, she grabbed an unused blanket from the bed. She washed makeup off her face with harsh soap, unlatched her bra, and sank low on the couch.

She only wished that she had the spins too. It would have kept her from imagining Felix’s hands on the dimples of her lower back, all the honey of Felix’s eyes darkening with lust, the heat from his mouth, and those quick hands moving down down down.

**Drink Six: _Coffee and Water_**

She couldn’t rightly call what happened when she opened her eyes the next morning waking up. It was more like returning to a world of fog where her head was caught in a bear trap. In this world of fog, she was sleeping on Felix’s couch, and a gray cat was staring at her from the floor.

“Hello,” Byleth reached her hand out to the cat and left it hovering in the air about a foot from where it sat. “What’s your name?” She groaned inwardly at the volume of her own voice.

Felix’s sweaty face peeked from his half-open door at Byleth. “His name’s Zoltan.” He swayed slightly by the door, as the cat reluctantly pressed his head into Byleth’s hand.

“Dignified name for a cat.” She gave Zoltan a scritch on the head before retracting her hand. Wincing from a head throb, she sat up slightly holding the stolen blanket close. “Are you okay?”

“I feel awful.” He rested his forehead against the doorjamb.

“I guess it’s my turn to take care of you. Go rest for another hour, and then we’ll go soak it up with brunch. If you don’t mind me staying?”

“Stay however long you want.”

With the passing of the weekend, Byleth and Felix did not talk about their thirsty night. Byleth continued to stay with Felix, bringing over her viola and one-and-a-half bags that contained all her worldly possessions. At night, they sat on opposite sides of the couch watching movies until Byleth fell asleep and Felix carried her into the bed, grateful to be a smaller man sleeping his nights on a larger couch. The rest of their routines fell into a normal pacing. Felix worked all the time, and Byleth played the viola.

* * *

No one knew how King Blaiddyd got around during the average weekday, and if they did Felix would have had to kill them. The Boar King could take care of himself, but, as Sylvain reminded them constantly, he should never be seen doing it. So Dedue was always with the King, and nothing got past Dedue.

Since word of Byleth had spread to the King, Felix was tasked with the responsibility of taking him down the hill to meet her. He paced, a tiny panther of a man, stalking between two giants as they walked down the hill. They were incognito in street clothes that smacked of dapperly dressed punks carrying brass knuckles.

Felix scanned obsessively for tattoos. Anyone with the Agartha tattoo was a suspect, and he was keeping a mental catalog. “We’re just going to the park, Felix. Relax.” Dimitri’s stretched legs were rejoicing as he sped through his city. It was always refreshing for the King to take a break from being Blaiddyd.

By midday, the three men reached the park. Byleth was running scales, allowing the logical notes to transport her back to time spent in the technological capital of Morfis with her dad. They traveled through the desert, fiddling in the grasses that ringed the jewel-like watering holes scattered across the red sands. Desert caravans adopted them for the nights, teaching them to bend their strings with non-chromatic frequencies—

She tried it then. Leaving behind the logical Western scales, she bent her strings glissandoing until she was pulling a trill in a frequency that twanged ideally out of tune. The more she warped the notes and dug her fingers into the instrument’s neck, the higher the breezes picked up around her. Eddies of whirlwinds twisted and braided the green vines surrounding Byleth. The winds trailed petals in their tow, throwing them at the approaching men.

Felix cleared his throat to get the musician’s attention, but she was too caught up in her playing to notice. The artificial breezes blew a flower into Dimitri’s hand. The young king looked down into his palm where the exotic orange flower continued to open. The corner of his mouth rose softly.

“Byleth!” Felix snapped. Her bow screeched on the strings, blowing up a gust of pollen from the surrounding flowers, and Felix began sneezing. Byleth looked up at the approaching men, unaware that they had come so close.

“Sorry, is that my fault?” Her eyes tracked the flower in Dimitri’s hand, and then Felix’s tissue wiping away his sneeze.

“Clearly.” Felix stowed the tissue, but he couldn’t help looking around at the flowers impressed.

“You must have tapped into something strong,” the tall, blond man said in a voice Byleth couldn’t fail to recognize. She dropped quickly into an awkward bow.

“Oh, no need,” the King stammered. For a man with the strength of Cuchulain, Dimitri could strike a fairly sheepish figure when he wanted to.

“Don’t draw attention,” Felix hissed, “can’t you see we’re in plain clothes?”

“And here I thought it was casual Friday up at the capitol.”

Only Dimitri smiled at this, as Dedue was looking around at the plants with an expert’s interest, and Felix scowled at the yellow pollen on the sleeve of his black sports-jacket. “I brought some friends to meet you.” Aside from a slightly nasal quality, Felix’s voice sounded bored, but Byleth could tell he was busy being on-the-job.

“King Blaiddyd,” Byleth whispered, unsure of the proper decorum. She never would have guessed that she would be talking to the King personally, much less that he would be wearing blue jeans and a cap pulled low over his eye patch.

“Yes, and this is Dedue,” Dimitri said, gesturing to the large man who was kneeling with his hand cupped around the calyx of a flower. “Is that—?”

“Yes, your highness, a Duscar rose. I didn’t think I would ever see one again.” Byleth had seen similar varieties in Morfis. The desert rose was specifically adapted for low-hydration settings. “I would like to dig it up by the roots if it’s to be permitted.”

“Of course, Dedue, whatever you’d like.” The king’s expression was soft as he watched the other man gently loosen the rose and its greenery from the surrounding dirt.

“My whole cabinet has been taken with your playing, so I told Felix that I must meet you.” Byleth stifled the impulse to bow nervously again. “With power like this, you really should be Crested. You would be quite an asset.”

“Only citizens can register Crests,” Felix reminded him to let Byleth off the hook.

“Of course,” Dimitri said. “If you play for us now, will it make more wind storms?”

“No, I don’t know where that came from.” Embarrassed, Byleth kicked the lily petals.

“Just play like you normally do,” Felix said. His eyes continued tracking around the park, and he kept his back to her.

“Okay, I’ve been calling this one ‘Chasing Daybreak’,” Byleth said before bringing the bow to the string.

Dimitri’s expression immediately became distant as memories chasing like shadow puppets across his prematurely aged cheeks: the old wounds of losing everyone in the tragedy of Duscar, of losing himself in a thirst for revenge, of the careful rehabilitation efforts of his saint-like friends. His mouth hardened into the cold resolve to never again let his people suffer in that way, even if it meant enacting harsh justice on the Agarthan menace—

As his King listened to the music, misty-eyed Dedue dug flowers from the ground. His hands were careful not to rip their newborn roots. He had plans—pots that he needed to purchase, rocky soil to procure, grow lamps to arrange. Each plant would have a place in his office.

Byleth raptured them with long looping melodies that allowed their fears to soften, their stresses to ease, their thoughts to fall into place. She played the men’s eyes soft. She trilled fragile smiles onto their faces. She played forgiveness that they could wrap around their strong shoulders like blankets.

“We should go,” Felix said, checking his watch.

“I suppose we should.” Dimitri was looking like a man who had rested well for the first time in a week. He roused himself, shaking broad shoulders. Dedue stood up, dirt under his nails and an assortment of vines and flowers in his arms. Their tender roots were still waving around.

Byleth smiled at the armful of plants. “If you have trouble transplanting those, I could help.”

“I appreciate that,” Dedue spoke solemnly. “Thank you.”

“Yes, thank you for playing for us.” Dimitri pulled his hat low again, but Byleth could make out a smile under the shadow.

“The honor is mine,” Byleth inclined her head. It was the most suppliance she could show the king, considering Felix was making his way toward her.

Under the guise of pressing money into her tip jar, Felix leaned close and spoke into her ear. “Be extra careful,” he said. “There was another abduction. I don’t know why, but it was a woman, and she had green hair—like yours. Don’t become a target.”

“I’ll watch out.” Byleth wished she could smooth the concern out of his face. Felix didn’t understand it, but she had always been provided for, and she had little doubt that she would always continue to be.

“I—um, I liked the piece.”

Her smile would have been infectious if Felix could afford to be infected by it. Instead he saved it in his memory to dwell within once Byleth inevitably left again.

* * *

Now that Felix had been to the property, finding Byleth’s opportunistic landlord was a simple matter of plug and play.

Ingrid popped her head into his office. “I’m so hungry! Dinner tonight?”

“Can’t, busy.” Felix didn’t look up from the computer.

“With what?”

“Security work.” 

“Okay fine. Since you’re working late anyway, take this with you.” She handed over a thick yellow envelope. “Some details about summer laws—water use, zoning for the Shakespeare festival... It’s all in legalese too, so it’ll be good reading for when you can’t sleep.”

Felix mustered a chuckle, as Ingrid dropped the packet on his desk. He stowed it in his case and got ready to leave. If he was lucky he could catch the bastard landlord at his office before the man went back to his home in the suburbs.

The door to the landlord’s office was an unoffensive color of Fhirdiad blue. But Felix caught the Agarthan symbol scratched into the bottom of the door by his foot. He gritted his teeth. Who knows what he was about to walk into? But Felix Fraldarius did not knock on doors; he cut through.

Already sliding a knife from his forearm into his palm, concealed by his wide sleeve, he opened the door.

A woman wearing red hair and an unfriendly scowl greeted him when he opened the door. As her eyes slid around Felix and his hand slipping toward his concealed gun, Felix registered the Agarthan tattoo on her forearm.

Felix took for granted that she knew exactly who he was. “Your boss?”

“Up there,” her eyes rolled toward the stairs.

Felix had two options: turn his back on the dubious secretary and head into unknown dangers, or call the boss downstairs and yield his element of surprise. Although, for all he knew, the secretary—Monica, according to her desk-plate—had already managed to alert the landlord. Felix chose the danger he didn’t know and went upstairs. The secretary popped gum behind him.

At the top of the stairs, he opened the shoddy chipboard door without knocking. A thug with the same tattoo crawling up his neck looked up from a ratty desk. “What are’ya?—Who are you?”

Felix raised his eyebrows, dropping the knife firmly into his hand and letting the blade out against his palm. “Do you own the property that used to be the Knights’ Quarters Hotel? Is it an Agarthan front?”

“Who wants to know?” the man growled.

“The Shield of Faerghus wants to know.”

“Someone’s spooked then.” The man expelled a foul gurgling chuckle. “Sending in the big guns. What’s an old hotel to the Shield of Faerghus?”

“You took a hefty deposit from a woman I know.”

“I don’t recall.”

Felix began menacingly flipping the knife in one hand. “Green-haired woman. Any reason you would be trying to keep her in your pocket?”

The man stood up, he was tall enough to tower over Felix, but the swordsman was faster. Even before the man finished throwing his chest out, Felix was at the guy’s neck with his knife.

“What interest does your gang have in her?” He asked through clenched teeth. “Why are you after people with green hair?”

“I don’t know—I wasn’t told. The stupid woman just fell into my lap,” the pressure of Felix’s knife pushed more into the man’s neck. One more millimeter, and the skin would give way to blood and meat.

“But they told you to hold onto her? Who do you work for?”

“Sure—sure they did. Stupid magic bitch and all that—That’s why you’re after her right, King’s dog?”

“Shut up!” Felix knew it was overkill to draw his gun. But he didn’t want to touch the man any longer. He didn’t want his thin, disgusting blood dribbling across his sleeve, more stains that took longer to wash out than they did to procure. A gun to the man’s head would allow Felix to step back and to stop feeling his foul sweat. “Right now, on your computer, refund her money, wire it back. I’m going to shut down your disgusting hotel and every Agarthan front connected to it.”

“A li’l below your station, isn’t it? The King’s Shield is really slumming it.” Felix clicked the gun’s safety. “Fine—fine—fine. You better hide your magic girl, real good. You have the upper hand today, but Blaiddyd has no idea how many of us there are. We rule this city.”

The gun nudged the man’s head. “Enter your password.”

The man’s words lay heavily on Felix’s shoulders, as he used the gun to nudge him through the rest of the process. Felix was a shadow out the door with his weapons re-secured by the time he reached the street.

It was a half-hour walk to his condo, and his footsteps moved like rapid rubber-band snaps with the tension of his thoughts. The cult wasn’t looking for Byleth specifically, just magic users with green hair, and the threats against Fhirdiad and Dimitri couldn’t be ignored either. Broken buildings that no one had bothered to clean up, offices full of occultists who felt empowered by their sheer numbers—how could Fhirdiad be rotting from the inside like this? And none of them had seen it until now?

He was seething with frustration by the time he reached the right street. He should have gotten more names while he was there. He still had no idea who he was working against. 

However, as he drew near the entrance, music floated toward him.

It was sad music, not the upbeat jigs and quick battle themes that Byleth usually played. This was slow, aching. The ponderous notes gave peace to Felix’s tensions, as he absorbed the quiet vibrato, the dragging dissonance.

Byleth was standing beneath the awning of a little deli that occupied the bottom floor of the condo tower. “I could feel you from blocks away,” Felix said as he drew near her. “You realize you’re probably fucking with this shop’s wireless, right?”

“You think so?” She turned around to see the neon sign behind her flickering. She stopped her sad trilling on the viola strings and lowered the instrument. Her eyes caught his sleeve. “Are you bleeding?”

“No. You should have the money in your account to rent a new place. Choose a better one this time. Now, come on, jinx, are you crashing here?”

She bent to secure the clasps on her viola case. “Yeah, I’ll sleep on the couch.”

“Fight me.”

* * *

To: Fraldarius@faerghus.gov  
From: Byleth@eisnerviola.me

Subj: Found a Room

Felix, Thanks for helping me out with everything and putting me up in your place for the past two nights. I’ve rented a real hotel room this time, and I think you’d approve: there are no roaches, the mice are polite enough not to show their faces, and the door locks.

Thanks again,  
Byleth

* * *

Stepping into Felix’s office, Ingrid’s pleasant smile was a Trojan horse hiding a terribly unpleasant conversation. She tucked her hair behind her ears and threw her apple core into Felix’s wastebin.

“New threats from the Agarthans and it was all over the news before Sylvain could get a public address out.”

“Fuck, what now?” Felix’s hands traced the outlines of the blueprints Dedue had dropped by earlier. The floorplan showed an illegal bio-medicine lab.

The cultists were growing bolder. They were stenciling their labs and hideouts with their symbol. #AgarthaRises was making the King’s Cabinet seriously reconsider their stance on free speech, not to mention giving Felix a long long list of bogeyman dead-ends.

If he could only find where they were centralized, if only there was some way to get directly to the leader, he and Dimitri could end it. They would get their trains back on track, calm some of the striking in the subways, and keep people from disappearing.

“Markings of corrupted magic in the lower suburbs, and another girl is missing.” Felix cursed and ran his fingers irritably through the back of his ponytail. “Annette’s investigating the magic.”

She tucked her hair behind her ears again. The gesture was unnecessary, considering her hair hadn’t left the spot. “There’s something else I want to talk to you about. Felix, I know what you did a few days ago with that hotel owner.” When Felix’s hand jumped up to silence her, she leaned forward, “Just let me get this out! I like Byleth too, but I can’t believe how many risks you took. You knew that man was a cultist? All to get your girlfriend out of a bad lease?”

Felix’s eyes were narrowed to sparks. “How do you know about this?”

“I bugged you. That envelope I gave you.” The envelope. He hadn’t opened it. In fact, he had forgotten all about it, what with Byleth staying with him.

“That’s invasive.” If it weren’t for Felix’s livid eyes, Ingrid might have thought he was taking this pretty evenly.

“If it’s any consolation, it was a cheap bug, and it stops working when your girlfriend’s around.” He thumped his hand down on the desk. “I did it because you’ve been different—she’s reckless and you’re becoming reckless because of her! You were threatening that guy. I thought I was going to have to listen to you kill him!”

“It wouldn’t have been a loss—you heard everything? The stuff about the Agarthans? Their abductions? How can you not think it justified to be worried about her.”

“And you never thought to buy her out of her deposit and just ignore the guy?”

“This is bigger than money.” His fingers fidgeted with the pen on his desk. No, it had not actually occurred to Felix to handle it peacefully. “I know you’re trying to keep me out of trouble. But I don’t need your help with this.”

“Well it’s also bigger than just your girlfriend too. Trouble’s going to come for all of us, you ass. Get smart and keep your head in the game.”

* * *

The televised news covered a press conference with Blaiddyd’s cabinet. If Byleth was shocked to see Felix’s face on the tv screen inside of the deli where she got her soup, she was even more saddened to see the tension between his eyes and the growling way he addressed the Faerghus populace from Sylvain’s script.

He and Sylvain had both come up with the announced safety measures, but it was the vagueness of the alarm bells that made him sick.

Despite its slouching attempts at modernity, Faerghus was a tough city. Its people learned early to defend themselves, to work hard, to stay armored. It seemed foolish, therefore, that all Felix’s advice amounted to people to watching their backs, locking their doors, checking in on their loved ones.

He wanted to give them the specifics, the names and the details, if only he knew those things himself. Instead, he mentioned the trains and avoiding those buildings that were popping up with the Agarthan symbol.

The rest were Sylvain’s words, that this wasn’t a question of outsiders or xenophobia. The cultists were arising from within, a corruption of themselves and the people of Faerghus. Even if they seemed crazy and spoke nonsense, they were still dangerous.

Felix had managed to hand the press conference back over to Sylvain before burying his head in his hands—those hands that had been so full over the past week, there had been no time for friends, for music, or anything that came with it.

Back in his condo, Felix was just taking the strap off his back and letting his hair down, when there was a knock at his door. Peering through the lens in the door, all he could see was a halo of green hair.

Felix rebolted the door behind Byleth, as she stood in his condo looking like someone preparing for battle.

“Is everything—” he asked running an exhausted hand through his hair.

“That thing you said about me being beautiful? Could you say it—say it again?”

She was tugging at her hair and trying to stand her ground in a little floral sundress that brought out the green in her eyes. He could do little but blink at her.

“Byleth—”

“You tried to kiss me, you know?”

“I did?” Felix’s hand raised to his face. “I don’t remember, I’m sor—”

“Would you still want that?” She stepped toward him, shoulders still set for a confrontation.

 _Since the first time I saw you there in the snow._ His eyes were winging larger than she had ever seen them. She hadn’t stopped walking toward him, and she was feeling drunk again on the deep whiskey of everything she felt whenever she saw Felix. “Would you?” he asked her back.

She was less a foot from him, and for the first time, Felix was motionless before a threat. “Allow me to demonstrate,” she knotted her hand into his collar and pulled his face closer to hers.

Felix’s hands were on her shoulders and his face leaned in quietly, like someone who had been lost in the arctic, circling the same glacier for months. His kiss was sharp and thin. “Relax,” she whispered and closed the millimeter distance.

Her lips were so soft, and his hands loosened their death grip on her shoulders. She had the light touch of a butterfly resting weightlessly on a flower, her lips more rubbing than pressing. He wanted the press, he wanted to crush her butterfly weight into him, to feel the fervor and the passion and the intensity with which she played her music. And so he did.

He knew what his face must look like, a creature somewhat in pain, a person utterly smitten, as he pushed her back against the door. But her hand was in his hair, and he could feel the heat of her skin through the flimsy sundress. She tasted like the kind of floral tea he had always hated until just that moment, and suddenly he was craving her sweetness. Her hands untucked his shirt, and he let one of his hands stretch to discover just how short the skirt of that dress was.

“So that’s how you feel about it?” She said as he freed her swollen lips to move his mouth down her throat. _That and more_ , he murmured against her neck.

Her hands moved up his shirt, tracing hard ridges of muscle until they caught on something hard and cold. Felix pulled back, but Byleth’s hands were quick, unbuttoning the bottom part of his shirt to reveal another strap holding his knife. “You just have straps everywhere, huh?”

“Don’t make it sound so salacious.” Her fingers toyed with the knife. “It was my brother’s.”

She moved her fingers above the knife to a long scar that marked up his abdomen. Her head dropped and bent as if she were intending for her lips to follow her fingers across the scar. Felix let out a groan that hissed between his teeth.

When her lips started brushing his skin, his hand came down below her chin to tilt her head to look at him. “Um, I haven’t really … disarmed with someone in a long time.” She shrugged and smiled, but he didn’t let her chin go. “I’ve had a rough week. Would it be okay if we just took it easy—watch a movie?”

“Sure,” she straightened up and leaned back against the door, blinking her eyes as if that would make her pupils less dilated. “Do you want me to go?—”

But he was shaking his head so fervently. “Don’t you dare leave. I’ll go get comfortable.” Stepping back from her, he immediately regretted the distance. “Do you want those flannel pants you liked the other night?” When she nodded, he passed her a soft smile and an even softer kiss on the lips.

When Felix came back out of his room, wearing a black t-shirt and soft teal pants and carrying some of his own clothes for Byleth to wear, she thought she would rip at the seams from desire. She changed in the bathroom, throwing cold water in her face and leaving her little dress to hang from the towel rack.

Byleth made to sit at the opposite end of the couch, but Felix roped an arm around her and pulled her closer. Her head found the perfect niche on his shoulder. The later it grew, the lower they both leaned into the couch until the movie went off and Byleth was asleep on his chest.

He shifted to pet Zoltan the cat who was looking jealously at Byleth. Then, he sunk into the couch, letting himself wrap her up, and as she dreamed her way half into the crook of the couch and half on top of him.

When Byleth woke up, her head was still on Felix’s chest. He had one arm slung around her hips with a hand tucked into the soft space right below the top of the flannel pants. The other was softly stroking her hair.

“A train ticket fell out of your jacket pocket last night.” Felix’s voice rumbled from beneath her. “You’re leaving today?”

“I meant to tell you.” She rotated to give Felix some room.

“I can’t say I wasn’t expecting it.” He sat up, reluctant that the dream had ended—the dream of Byleth’s weight holding him securely in place, Byleth’s hair between his hands whispering her inspiration to him in the night. “I don’t like the idea of you on the train, though. You know they’ve been targeted.”

“What would you have me do?” She would have been irritated, if she wasn’t deriving a certain delight from the tangled mess that was the back of Felix’s head.

“Stay here.”

“Where you claim I’m also a target? I have to go, and you have to worry about Blaiddyd. My contract’s only a couple of weeks. Besides, Summer in Derdriu is so nice. The winds come in from the port and cool down the whole city...”

“What if I got you a job here?”

“I want to play music, Felix, not work as a file clerk in Blaiddyd’s office.”

Felix nodded, resigned. “It was worth a try. Look, if you’re determined to go, I have something for you.” He stood to grab a box from his desk.

“Haven’t you given me enough already?” When he sat beside her, she resisted the urge to lean into him.

“You said that in another life you thought you would be more like me. Well, I need you to take care of yourself in this life.” He handed her a small butterfly knife. “Open it like this,” he moved the handles away from the blade to reveal four inches of sharp black. “Keep it on you, okay? If someone comes at you…”

She held the knife in her hand. A reassuring weight, even if she never intended to use it. Then, she re-secured the blade back into its handle and rested it on the ground.

She angled her knees on either side of Felix’s and brought her mouth down to his, forcing him back into the couch cushions. There it was, his hand back on her hip, reaching up under the t-shirt. Her soft tongue was in his mouth, searching for all the words, all the terms of endearment he hid in there.

Felix pulled back, “Byleth. Byleth—there’s something else.”

“Can’t we just?” She wiggled on his lap a little.

“Are you going to react like this every time you see a knife? Because…” He gave her the first devilish smile she’d seen him wear, and it almost sent her into another fit of gyrating. Then, he shook his head, “I have work, and you have a train to catch. I wanted to talk to you about your phone. I hooked it up to normal cell service. You have a normal phone number now.”

Byleth hopped off Felix’s lap, “It won’t do any good.”

“Just try it. I want you to call me if you’re in trouble.” But Byleth was shaking her head, looking annoyed. And Felix grabbed her chin to stop her, “Please,” he said kissing her before pulling back, “Please stop being so stubborn.” Another kiss and his hand dropped to her neck. “Please stay safe.” He grabbed her hand, kissing her again. “Please take care of yourself.”

There was little Spring left once Byleth passed on to Derdriu, but many of her flowers had successfully rooted in the ground. The botanists harvested seeds, hoping to cultivate hardy, Faerghus-specific mutations of the exotic flowers. During each morning commute, Felix stooped to pick one of Byleth’s flowers. Each time, the pollen flew up to sting him with sneezing—a little bit of pain and passion before hitting the stoic capitol.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I imagine Byleth’s scotch-tasting notebook is like:  
> Mortlach 12 — very smooth. Will make you unzip your lover’s pants at the bar but then you’ll both blush to literal death from the sheer audacity.


	5. Early Summer (when Heat Cooks the Grass)

**Suspect 012**

The majority of the cultists brought in gave incoherent testimonies. Felix saw them all in a nondescript office with a two-way glass. Ingrid had insisted that there be tea available; it was only proper.

The problem still stood that most of them were either too tough to crack with tea and cookies, or they could hardly string a sentence together. Most resorted to uttering the same Agarthan phrases and riddles. It was a relief when Felix found someone eager to entertain him with a story.

His footsteps stalked the stifling room for the third time that day. They couldn’t open a window because flight risks were a problem, but each day of the Summer heat reminded him of that old adage about buildings made of stone keeping in the cool air—and how it was a lie.

Knowing that Dedue and Dimitri were watching through the one-sided glass in the adjacent room was steadying. It allowed him to keep his hands controlled at his side, rather than fidgeting with his knife. Each stride, he hoped, would carry him closer to the truth, no matter how many of these cultists he had to serve tea to get there.

He stopped in his pacing and stood in front of Suspect 012. “What is Agartha? And don’t give me that fairytale bullshit about a city in the center of the world.”

“That’s what it is, man.” The suspect had the eyes of a fanatic who had diced one-too-many powder-bricks with his razor blade. He was completely neglecting his Breakfast Blend.

Felix was having his men bring in the cultists one-by-one. Some were rough thugs with few teeth from all the brawling, members of an overlooked criminal element dressed in jeans and flannels. Others were as presentable as your average office worker.

The knights were identifying them from their advertisements: flags flying, stenciled decals, bumper stickers, lapel pins, cuff links, and tattoos. Felix hadn’t allowed his office to stoop so low as to track web traffic, but the thought was tempting.

“If you have utopia down there, what do you want with Faerghus?”

The man rubbed a thumb against his jaw, and it looked for a second like his skin might peel off with it. “I grew up in Fhirdiad, and I haven’t known anything else. But this group, man, they say they have these weapons of power. They also say…” He trailed off with that tantalizing sideways look of someone about to reveal something true.

“They say what?” To inspire confidence, Felix sat in the chair across from the suspect and kept his hands above the desk.

“That they can make us feel good. And not just the powder but something that would really change us. Take away the pain.”

Felix bit the inside of his cheek. That’s it, then: this man was a junkie, and no conspirator in their right mind would trust a junkie with valuable information. For one, they’re always ready to turn and leak secrets when they think they’ve found a new pipeline. “You hate Faerghus that much?”

“Faerghus has never done anything for me, man. I just wanted something different, something bigger. These people, they promise you magic even if you’ve never been magic before. Ancient technologies, other worlds—isn’t that way better than Faerghus?”

Felix looked at the teacup with its big ornamental “F” decal and scrolling handle. Something about Faerghus’s way of life did seem very mundane. How selfish, though. Suspect 012 had joined the Agarthans to feel good and boost himself, no matter what the cost.

“And the people who go missing? The people being hurt?”

“We have a bigger picture, man, a bigger plan. Sacrifices have to be made.”

“Is that what they tell you? They give you phrases like that to parrot?”

“Agartha will rise. Watch the ground under your feet. You’re not invincible, King’s Shield.”

Felix stood and walked out.

* * *

_To: Fraldarius@faerghus.gov_  
_From: Byleth@eisnerviola.me_

_Subj: Derdriu is Lovely_

_Before you ask, yes I’m safe here and I can lock my room._

_Actually, there’s a super burly and super kind shopkeeper who watches out for me while I play near his store. He says that I remind him of his sister. Honestly, though, I don’t think it takes much for any woman to remind him of his little sister. It’s sweet._

_He has a blue-haired friend who has faith magic as well. Get this— she uses it to speak with animals! It sounds crazy, right? It took her a while to trust me, but she eventually told me that she had a difficult time controlling her ‘nature’ too. She’s been giving me pointers. I’m getting better at not shutting off the lights unless I want to. I don’t know about the healing thing, though._

_The things I hear coming out of Fhirdiad have had me a little panicked. Random acts of violence? People turning against each other? I know I’m not getting the whole story out here, but I worry. Stay safe, Felix. (Now I sound like you!)_

_Byleth_

* * *

  
**Suspect 035**

Suspect 035 was dressed as innocuously as an insurance salesman, except that he had one of those faces Felix just couldn’t forget. “I know you—you used to work here, right?”

“Yes, Fraldarius,” the man bit out Felix’s name like it had done him personal harm. He shifted his eyes to the back of the room as if he knew who was standing behind the one-way glass. “I used to work for you.”

“You worked in my department,” Felix corrected him. The separation was small and selfish, but he wanted Suspect 019 to know that he had never worked for Felix himself. “You left for a private security job. Is that how the Agarthans recruited you?” Felix pushed the over-steeped green tea closer to the man, trying for hospitality.

“No, I lost that job.”

He stared at the suspect’s chin. It wasn’t his failure if someone from his department left and fell in with cultists, right? He had hardly met the guy and was never on duty with him. 

The man sipped the tea before elaborating. “I only got it because they expected me to sell secrets about Blaiddyd. When that well ran dry, I had to work as a bouncer.”

“That’s when you were recruited?”

“I was bored. This seemed interesting. We just want change, Fraldarius.” The man’s eyes continued to rove the wall facing him, sketching an imagined impression of Dimitri’s shadowy form behind the glass.

“What kind of change?”

“Some of us feel that there aren’t any opportunities in Faerghus.” The man swept his hair aside. It was a marked gesture to show Felix how comfortable he was under interrogation. This was one of their tactics. Someone was teaching the cultists to rattle right back at the Knights.

“You naively left a cushy government job to sell government secrets. Then you complain that there are no opportunities?”

“You want to know what kind of change we want?” The man leaned forward as if preparing to make demands.

Felix’s voice was an ice palace, “I’m not negotiating with you.” Then, Felix’s earpiece buzzed as Dimitri turned on his speaker. _Do it, Felix_ , Dimitri said, _See what they want._

“What do you want?” Resigned, Felix watched the man trace the teacup handle with one finger.

“We’re not making demands, King’s Shield. When change happens, we’ll be the one’s doing it. Faerghus is stale, obsessed with its past. We intend to move forward.” Felix looked up at the man, searching his face for signs of remorse and disillusion that weren’t there.

“So you have a future vision for Faerghus?”

“I do now—we all do. It begins with Blaiddyd stepping down. We’d ditch this constitutional monarchy bullshit, and the best would rise to the top.” The man boastfully leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms over his chest.

“You think you would be among them?”

“Among who?”

“‘The best.’ In your big power fantasy, you see yourself on top.” Power fantasies are dangerous, Felix knew. There’s always someone who wants what you have. “I have a feeling you’re nowhere near the top of the pyramid.”

“But I could be. I have an opportunity to prove myself soon.”

Felix spent another twenty minutes prying about whatever plot the man was alluding to. By the time the usual Agarthan cant and riddles came out, he was about to lose his temper. He stifled the urge to punch the guy in his boasting mouth and walked out of the room.

“Is he right?” Dimitri asked, his head hang-dog when Felix met him on the other side of the glass.

“About Faerghus being stale and rotting?” Felix sat next to Dimitri and tried to work some of the tension out of his own shoulders. “He might be. I’ve been blinded to it myself, but there’s a lot of unrest—abandoned buildings and unfriendly communities. I’m not one to talk, but it must be bad for civic morale.”

“Can we fix it?” Dimitri’s voice spoke with the whispers of ghosts—a fear of failure and the horrors of the past.

“I think so. This is more Sylvain’s field, but it’s worthwhile to remind people what it means to enjoy living in Faerghus again—introduce some fun.”

“Fun?” Dimitri looked at Felix’s humorless face and shook his head.

“Festivals that aren’t pageantry, banquets, and stuffy orchestral concerts. Bring the citizens into the action. Again, I’m not the one you should be talking to.”

“Really? Because I think your ideas are probably spot on. Everything’s been closed banquets and entertaining the restless nobles, hasn’t it?” They were quiet for a few moments. “Do you think I’m like them, grasping for power?”

“You’re the one who insisted we develop a constitution after your—”

“My breakdown.”

“You chose to limit your power, not grasp. Maybe years ago, I would have said yes; being Blaiddyd could be a slippery slope. The suspect we interviewed before this, the one who was part of Miklan’s gang…”

“I constantly wonder if I made the right choice that day.”

“I think, that’s what’s making you a sovereign and not a Boar.”

A shadow crossed Dimitri’s face. The expression was familiar from whenever the King was overtaken by his past demons. Then, it cleared, and Dimitri looked up at Felix, “Has that musician taught you how to comfort people now?”

Felix coughed and turned his head away.

* * *

“I know you got me this phone number just to hear my voice.” Byleth’s sound was a warm relief on the line, immediately transporting Felix back to blissful spring afternoons in the park.

“I’m checking in on you.”

“So you are.” She hummed into the silence and he let his shoulders relax for the first time that day. “Playing for this theater is going well, I haven’t been blowing out any stage lights, at least.”

“That’s good progress.”

His words were so terse that Byleth laughed, crackling their phone connection. For a moment, Felix thought he might lose her. His first impulse was to reprimand her not to laugh, that it was too musical. And, on the other hand, he wanted her to keep laughing forever.

“Are you going to tell me about it?” When he merely made a humphing noise into the phone, she added, “These interrogations— I know they’re stressing you out.”

“It’s nothing interesting; we’re no closer to finding their leader.”

The line went quiet for a moment. When she was so far away, Byleth felt just as powerless to comfort Felix as he was to protect her.

“So, uh,” she said, “what are you wearing now?”

“Are you serious, Byleth?” His skepticism cut like a blade.

But she was expecting it. “Mmmm, it’s so hot here, I’m just gazing out my window at the canal, wearing nothing but my underclothes—wait, that’s not sexy—my Lingerie. Um, black lingerie, specially made in Derdriu.”

“Can anybody see you?” He sounded so puzzled she wasn’t sure he was catching on.

“I wish _you_ could.” When he chuckled lightly, she kept going. “And it’s so hot, I’m all sprawled out. But I can’t stop rubbing my hands up and down my own body, even though it’s just making it so much hotter.”

“Are you really?”

“That’s not the point, Felix.”

But when he closed his eyes, he could see her green hair spooled over the pillow in waves. He imagined her flushed skin in the kissed-orange glow from the sun setting over the canals. In his mind, her hands skimmed her breasts through the black lace; her legs twisted in the sheets restless and searching for something to hug. Oh, he got the point.

“Your turn,” she said, and he could hear the mischief in her smile.

“I’m, um, just here wearing nothing but a sword.”

She sent her full laugh in soundwaves down the line.

* * *

A film student practicing his camerawork in the park caught the footage of the first one. His video showed a man transforming into a monster— sharp protruding teeth, bowed-backed and scaly-skinned.

The student posted it online, complete with his own commentary of, _What the fuck?_ and _Are you seeing this?_ The video went viral, despite the overwhelming majority of commenters convinced that it was a hoax, a kid’s CGI project.

Felix replayed the images repeatedly until he could see them with his eyes closed, particularly the Agarthan symbol burnished into the monster’s shoulder. They had called in the film kid to explain it. And the kid told them exactly what he had told the Internet, that he just filmed what he saw.

But that was only the first one. 

More guerrilla footage trickled in from passers-by. The videos were shaky, and it was difficult to make out the details. There were two of them this time, one man and one woman. For the most part, the videos only caught the tail end of the transformations, when they were more monsters than people, turning on the civilians. This time, they had sent Kingdom Knights to capture the monsters, but once on the scene, the knights couldn’t find them anywhere.

“We need footage of the entire transformation,” Felix said, ducking his head into Sylvain’s office. “Come to the park with me, we’ll stake out the monsters.”

“I’m pretty busy, Fe. There’s a lot to explain what with cultists threatening public safety, uncovered illegal bio-medical experimentation, and people turning into literal monsters.”

“You have a whole department of spin doctors. Let them do the work. We need to see what’s happening for ourselves.”

Felix and Sylvain weren’t the only ones staking out the transformations. Morbid curiosity crowded the park. Many were Knights that Felix had stationed there, but others were civilians. Felix looked through the crowd attempting to catalogue what was happening. As Annette had said, if these monsters were someone’s experiment, that person would want to keep an eye on them when they transformed.

They weren’t disappointed. Early in the afternoon, two men stumbled into the square looking as though they had both dosed on something hard. They stood in the sunlight despite all signs showing that they would rather be crawl into a shady corner. Felix recognized one of them as Suspect 05, a man they had brought in two weeks prior who spoke in nothing but memorized Agarthan phrases. 

Suspect 05, kept glancing over to a shaded spot near where Byleth used to play. But the flowers were long gone now, the grasses brittle from the heat. Felix was almost positive he had another reason to be looking there, and it wasn’t just for want of shade. The experimenter.

Sylvain nudged Felix to draw his attention, his hand already raised with his camera, “It’s happening.”

The men paced tight rings in the sunlight. Then, Felix watched as their jaws elongated. He couldn’t tell what happened first—what caused what. Were the bones shifting or was the skin calcifying and thus forcing the bones to alter?

The skin around the jaw grew hard and gray, as it changed into something that looked like scales. The musculature of the face and mouth were moving, forcing the bones to crack and follow suit or break altogether. For one of the men, the bones splintered into the cheek, cracking scales away from the skin as they pushed their way through.

The men howled as their teeth grew sharp, and new teeth pushed up rupturing the jaw where they rooted. Rows of fangs overloaded the roots, scratching against each other. They forced the outer layers to curl and grow away from the jaw until they started puncturing the first barrier of leathery skin and scabbing off hard scales where they protruded.

The eyes grew large, outpacing their eyelids, so that they could never completely close, doomed to always take in too much light. They could not shut the day out, and it would always shine into what they had become. And so they howled, as their pupils narrowed to reptilian slits and the iris sprawled across the whole eyeball, a feral mess of murky pigmentation. From these unclosed eyes, they wept openly.

The transformation bent their backs like longbows, as their nails elongated to talons. Horns ripped through their clothing along their spine. Calcified toenails grew and sharpened until they speared through steel-toed boots. The men moved quickly in crouches, swiping at their prey. They became aggressive: spitting toxins, hissing, attacking.

It took four of the knights to bring one of them down. In the meantime, it managed to injure two civilians with toxins that made them cough up so much of their respiratory ghosts it seemed like they would never stop. One civilian sustained a concussion that would continue to fester anger below the brain-pan, deep in the mind.

The next day, three more people mutated. Kingdom knights met the Fraldarian marines to drive the monsters together and keep them away from the civilians.

Cleaning blood from his sword beside the downed body of a monster, Felix watched the torment in Mercedes’ eyes as she cast Abraxas on two at once. Annette, doing her part, sent Seraphim spells at the last.

The scientists and researchers moved in, led by Professor Hanneman from the Sorcery Academy. They took samples: saliva, blood, skin, and teeth. They separated the bodies at their joints, hoping that these discrete pieces could offer answers to the riddles. The researchers were cold, the knights traumatized, the civilians scared and confused.

“They’re our people, these monsters,” Mercedes said. “Isn’t there a way to help them?”

“I have a meeting with Rhea tomorrow.” Annette didn’t move her eyes from the ground below her feet. “But she’s already implied she doesn’t know enough either.”

“We’ve lost control.” Felix’s teeth threatened to tear flesh from his inner cheek.

“Control? No, this isn’t about control, not for us. We lost their hearts.” When Mercedes put her hand on his shoulder, Felix briefly felt a lightening that reminded him of Byleth.

He looked over the mess: thick, sticky blood like you might find on a movie set; pools of yellow toxins roped off until the researchers could neutralize them; elongated bones poking in awkward angles from the severed flesh. Grim-faced Knights cleaned the scene. Perhaps, tomorrow, they would have to do it all again.

* * *

Each day was a long day. Each day was a bad day.

Each night, once he had personally escorted Dimitri to his living quarters and was assured of the guards surrounding the King, Felix started drinking.

It was as if Byleth had ignited a reckless thirst inside of him. The alcohol hurt. It hurt at night and it hurt in the morning, and Felix had the distinct sense that it only made the loneliness worse.

_To: Fraldarius@faerghus.gov_  
_From: Byleth@eisnerviola.me_

_Subj: (no subject)_

_I’ve been thinking— In the past, I’ve been stubborn about always wanting to travel. I was always looking for something new. But right now, there’s something I can’t get past— I miss Fhirdiad and I miss you. I miss you. And I don’t care that you have cliffs instead of beaches out there._

_I’ve decided to come back as soon as I can. When the contract here is up, I’m there. You can get me that stupid file clerk job if you have to. I’ll find my own time to play music. If nothing else, I’ll play for you. Okay?_

Felix took another shot of whiskey. It sent him coughing, and his eyes burned and watered so much that he couldn’t see the message he was typing. He thought he was writing, _Stay safe and tell me before you leave Derdriu_. Instead, it said,

_To: Byleth@eisnerviola.me_  
_From: Fraldarius@faerghus.gov_

_Subj: Re: (no subject)_

_I love you_

Those things for which Byleth had no words, she passed over with a trilling viola in the dark of a rented room while gazing into the reflection of lights on the canals. Those little lights, soft as fairies, were all that remained when she played the electrical lamps down. One day maybe, Felix would join her traveling, and they could sail their own little gondola through the canals of Derdriu.

Because Byleth did not ask the bigger questions, but she sure as hell felt them. And if he wanted a response he would have to say it to her face, and then her face would have to respond. 

* * *

News blared from every screen in every office. Ingrid was watching and scrolling and clicking and reading. Sylvain was running frantically from one office to the other. He had run his hands through his hair so much it was a puffy nimbus atop his head, and the worst part was that no one was in the mood to tease him for it.

Ashe, sat on the corner of Felix’s desk reviewing his next deployment. “I’m not sending you after the monsters,” Felix was saying, “The Crested sorcerers from the academy should be working on them. I need you at the train station, we’ve already had a few abductions from the trains and a bomb threat. You can handle scouting, right?”

“I can do it,” Ashe said. Though his voice squeaked, Felix trusted him.

“I’m sending a Fraldarian battalion with you. They’re well-trained.” He bit his lip, the trains—the trains—and Byleth, he still hadn’t heard from her. “Excuse me, I need to make a phone call.”

The phone barely rang before directing Felix to voicemail, “Byleth,” he said, “What are your plans? The trains are more unstable than ever. If you’re coming back here—and I don’t think you should—let me know and I’ll send a car for you or something. Byleth, don’t trust the trains.”

He gave himself a second to bury his forehead in his palm. What if he had done this? That idiotic email—those three words—had both made her both less communicative and more rushed to return. But he had no time to dwell on it because Dimitri was running into his office looking like a scarecrow set ablaze.

“What’s going on?” Felix asked when he saw Dimitri huddled in the corner of his office and Ashe looking like he was about to have a panic attack.

“I need to get away from my office for a moment. Please, Felix, let me hide in here.”

“Oh, sure,” Felix turned away from Dimitri. “Any questions Agent Ubert?”

“No.” Ashe sputtered, shocked to see Dimitri hanging his head between his knees. “Should I go right away?”

“Yes. If there’s anything funny at the train station, don’t hesitate to phone me in.” Ashe nodded and left.

Felix glanced back at Dimitri to see him taking steadying breaths before dialing the number again. Half a ring and then her voicemail which she hadn’t even bothered to program, “Byleth, call me when you get this.” He hung up.

“How much longer can we do this?” Dimitri asked from the corner. “It feels like they’ve taken them all, like they’ve taken everything.”

“Stay in the present,” Felix responded running a weary had over his hair. “It’s not the time to dwell on the past.”

“You’re right, Felix. Of course you are.” Dimitri lifted his head. “Is Byleth okay?”

“I think she’s trying to get back to Fhirdiad now.”

“It would be a comfort to have her here.” Though he hated himself for it, Felix had to agree. Would it always be that what was a comfort to him was a danger to her? “I wonder what kind of effect her magic would have on those monsters.”

“I hope we fix all this before we have to find out.”

* * *

Byleth would have answered her phone. She might even have changed her plans if she had heard the panic in Felix’s voice. But she was making bank playing the viola before her train ride.

Train people in Derdriu were sympathetic. They had cash on them from buying espresso, magazines, news leaflets, and pastries, and they had no problem dropping it into Byleth’s viola case as she soothed their anxieties.

While she played their worries away, her phone had glitched itself off, and Felix’s calls never came through. Byleth was halfway through her ride when she thought about the phone and switched it back on. As Felix’s voice garbled from the speaker, she wished she could smooth the panic out of it. For better or worse, she was already on the express train, and there were no stops until the Fhirdiad station.

She sent him a message:  
_I’m on the express train. Didn’t receive your messages until now. Nothing wrong so far. I’m scheduled to arrive in Fhirdiad at 6:15 pm._

Byleth stepped off the train in Fhirdiad with her one-and-a-half bags and her viola case on her back to find herself surrounded by men with Agarthan tattoos on their bared arms, and a woman with red hair. She dropped all her bags except the viola strapped to her back and pulled out Felix’s knife.

“Hey magic girl, remember me?” The tallest man said. “Your boyfriend put a gun to my head.” She gripped the knife in her back-handed fist, and her face went completely blank.

If they thought Byleth would be an easy mark, they were mistaken. Their grunts went in first. Byleth was quicker, though, when she let her elbows fly. She looked like a spinning top as she broke a man’s nose. Then, she hit him in the gut and gave a fist full of knife to the other man, but it only knicked him. She readjusted it for the next onslaught.

She couldn’t dodge everything but she could kick away their grasping hands. With a badly aimed punch but a well-aimed jab, she sent the knife into the face of one of the men and pulled at the disgusting flesh of his cheek as it gave way to the blade’s 22-degree perfection. Byleth only had a moment to feel the shock as the man’s blood came back on her, but her grip was so tight now that nothing would make that blade slip from her hand.

As the bleeding man fell back, another in grungy flannels stepped forward. Byleth saw the Agarthan tattoo crawling up his neck, and she punched at it. That man faltered choking and stumbling. Byleth prepared herself to lunge at him again, but she was grabbed from behind by her foot. Unbalanced, she fell and the next thing she knew her old landlord had her in a tight hold, arms pinned to her sides.

“Oh ho, so fiesty, how cute” the red-haired woman forced a theatrical chuckle. The tall landlord restrained Byleth, as Monica tied her hands behind her back.

Byleth shrieked.

Byleth had been through a lot of shit—abusive landlords, creepy stalkers, rodents of unusual size—but she wasn’t someone who got angry, and she had never been a screamer before. 

The scream was out of control, pushing from her diaphragm as if she were a woodwind that someone else was breathing into with all their might.

As she shrieked, the red-haired woman’s skin rose in ridges. Byleth could see something vining and rippling under the skin, digging tendrils into the dermal layer. The vining tremored along to the vibrato from Byleth’s shriek.

Like veins popping from the skin of someone with deadly high blood pressure, Monica was covered with popping green vines. The more Byleth screamed, the higher the ridges grew. And as they swelled, they grew sharp, thin protuberances, which elongated into thorn spears. 

The thorns began poking through Monica’s skin. They pushed her blood outward from the inside. Byleth screamed higher; Monica’s calf ripped open as a bundle of vines and thorns tore and speared pieces of flesh. Her body jerked in termors from the shock.

“Shut her up!” The woman screamed in agony. She writhed as the skin on her shoulder was flayed open by another rising ridge of thorns. “Shut her up right now! Gag her!” Byleth’s last scream caused a briar bush of vines to grow out of the woman’s neck, thorns judiciously sharp stretched and sliced her open.

“You’re lucky you’re needed alive,” the landlord grunted, before the broad butt of a knife came down on Byleth’s head, once, twice, and it knocked her lights out. 

* * *

“Felix!” Ingrid was tearing through the hallway, her wrecked braid getting air time as it trailed after her. “Felix! You have to come to the war room!”

“What is it?” Felix jerked his head up from blueprints of one of the Agarthan-run laboratories. Ingrid stopped within the doorway, looking suddenly as if she didn’t know what to say. 

Since their whole office had been running at this level of panic for almost a month, Felix had become somewhat inured to it. He grabbed his phone and stood, glancing quickly at his watch. He had intended to stay in the office until it was time to go pick Byleth up. Now, it was 7 pm and he should have met her at the train station almost an hour ago. She hadn’t called.

Ingrid continued to gape at him. He took in the shocking amount of flyaways darting from her braid. “Ingrid are you okay?”

“It’s Byleth.”

Felix felt his blood leave his body; his heart beat and nothing flowed through it, each ventricle dry-heaving. “I was supposed to pick her up...”

“Felix, come on! We have to go to the war room.” His strides quickly overtook hers, and then it was him running down the halls and bursting through the door of the long conference room.

“Replay it again,” Dimitri was saying. They had the projector screen pulled down, and an image, crisp despite the low-light shot, was playing on the screen.

An ancient man’s pale and bulbous forehead came so close to the camera that they could count its veins. The man pulled back from the camera and began talking into it:

_Blaiddyd and his Shield, I hear you’ve been looking for me. Permit me to introduce myself. I am Solon, and I have been ruling the people of Faerghus from the shadows. How are you enjoying my little Agartha Rises project? I have to say, you have put down some of my finest experiments. How would you feel about putting this one down?_

He stepped out of view. The camera shifted its automatic focus with excruciating slowness. Someone was tied up in a chair. Someone with green hair was trussed up in a chair. Byleth had been beaten and was tied up in a chair.

_I can see why you like her, King’s dog. She’s a fiesty one. I hate these goddess-touched faith magic users, but she’ll be much better, much more palatable when we’re done._

Byleth looked up into the camera, and Felix’s whole world narrowed to the anger in her eyes and the flat hatred of her face. She began making a sound, a guttural humming in the back of her throat, and the video flickered.

“Shut her up,” Although outside the camera’s view, Solon’s expediency betrayed his fear. Felix recognized the man he had threatened stop in front of Byleth and slap her. The humming stopped.

The image froze with Byleth on the screen. She was looking right through the camera, face still so blank and green eyes full of that blazing anger he had never seen before.

“Is there more?” Felix asked.

“That’s where it ends,” Dimitri spoke from beside him.

Sylvain whistled. The tone plummeted as if he had decided it was a bad idea halfway through, but he couldn’t stop pressing the air out of himself if he wanted to. He looked around the room. “That’s no good,” he said, grasping to begin the conversation. “We’ve all seen her power. What kind of monster do you think they can turn her into?”

The Head of PR was gazing around, waiting for the negotiations to begin, until he saw the direction of Ingrid’s eyes. Ingrid’s big obvious eyes weren’t looking at the image of the bound and gagged musician on the screen but at Felix.

Unlike Byleth, whose face went blank and cold before confrontation, Felix’s scrunched. Lines etched his forehead and deepened between his eyes, as he honed in on Byleth’s face on the screen.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In the words of Felix, everybody, please take care of yourselves and stay as safe as you can.


	6. Mid-Summer (between Dust and Fireflies)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for your comments and subs! They are appreciated and gave me the much-needed energy to write this chapter.
> 
> Now I'll sublimate all my world-malaise and frustration into wrecking some fictional cultists and writing smut.

_What kind of monster do you think they can turn her into?_

In the stifling war room, dust motes wiled through beams from the lowering sun. No airflow reached them, no oxygen, nothing green or growing. The room was itchy, hot, and Felix had to keep his cool.

It would have been unacceptable to launch himself at Sylvain’s throat like a wild animal, determined to rip his friend’s too-perfect face between his fingernails. Besides, they were all thinking it; Sylvain was just the one to say it. What would those bio-mutagens do to Byleth? Would he be forced to see her transform: her face warped by jagged teeth and horns; her magic corrupted until it withered all that she once grew; her eyes incapable of closing?

When Felix broke his eye-contact with the ghost-image of Byleth on the screen, it was because he was rushing across the room. Before he knew it, he had one hand wrapped in Sylvain’s collar and the other raised to wind up for the punch.

“You don’t want to do that, Fe,” Sylvain breathed between them. Felix’s fist shook in the air. Sylvain added quietly, “It will only make you feel worse.”

Felix choked up on Sylvain’s collar and pulled the tall man down to his level. “You said—you—how—”

“I misspoke.” He stared into Felix’s face, a map lined with the frustrated topology of everything they had been through in the past few months. Ridges between his eyes spoke of their battles, while the basins at the corners of his mouth were a testament to the love he had found. “I can’t imagine how this feels.”

“No, you can’t!” Felix was snarling, still ready for a fight. The admission itself, however, was too tender. Sylvain didn’t know whether to hug Felix or push him away.

“We’re not going to let it happen.” He kept his tone at a practiced level, and he rested his hand rested on Felix’s shoulder. “You don’t have to protect everyone alone; I’ll come with you.”

Felix dropped his arms. “You never go into the field.”

“This time, I think you could use your cavalry.” Sylvain stepped backward to give his friend some space. “But we can’t just run off. Let’s think this through: Why Byleth? And why tell us? I didn’t notice any demands in that video.” He looked at Ingrid, “Did you?”

“Felix is the demand,” she said slowly. “He’s causing problems by going after them. And,” she avoided Felix’s eyes as she talked, “And, they know he’s already defended Byleth once. It’s a trap.” The idea was grotesque, to trap Felix in with a monster Byleth and have one kill the other.

“Well, it won’t work for them, not if we can get there soon enough,”

“Yes. We will not allow them to weaponize our people like this.” Dimitri’s voice was breaking with the rough gravel that they hadn’t heard since the Fodlan Wars. Dedue to a step toward the King, concern binding his expression. “We will hunt them down.”

It didn’t matter that Byleth was not legally their people or even a citizen of Faerghus. No one considered saying that she was a mere vagabond who played music on a second-string instrument. Perhaps it was the potential threat of Byleth’s corrupted faith magic or Felix’s tormented face.

However, they each held another loyalty to her as well. They had adopted Byleth, for whatever it was worth—and considering who was in the room, it was worth a whole hell of a lot. So, they clung to the faith that whatever providence it was that had always kept Byleth safe would stack the deck for her again.

“Great,” Sylvain said, his signature cavalry blase returning to his voice. “How do we find her?”

Ingrid scanned the image on the screen for any remarkable landmarks, “If I had to guess, it’s one of their labs.”

“Ashe should have been there,” Felix’s spoke weakly but reason had returned to his words. “He might have seen something.” In a second, his phone was out and he was dialing the sniper, “Agent Ubert what—”

“Agent Kyphon,” Ashe’s voice came through. “There was a disturbance at the train station. Blood on the ground, but we didn’t see what happened. Felix, Byleth Eisner’s bags were left near the site. We tracked a van to the lab on 12th and Primrose, southern district of Fhirdiad—”

“I know where it is.” The floorplan had been on Felix’s desk just the other day.

“I’m outside it now, but Agent Kyphon, it’s heavily guarded. I need more backup before I can make the next move.”

“I’m on my way.”

* * *

The lab was so ill-maintained that the footsteps of the Agarthans stirred up clouds of dirt fit for a desert. Despite being strapped into a chair, Byleth was causing problems. For one, she was refusing to become a monster.

If only she had her viola in hand, she could have raised enough vengeful weeds to erode that building to dust and dance in the rubble, while her music colonized the remains with heather and butterflies. But they had taken her resources: her knife, her hands, her instrument, her movement, her ability to speak or scream, even her focus was disrupted by a feedback loop of concussion symptoms.

Even after the vomiting in the back of the kidnap van, it was a constant struggle to stay conscious. Byleth seized moments of clarity whenever the room stopped spinning. When she started to feel herself slipping away, she fantasized behind her open eyes.

She imagined the hikes Felix spoke of from his childhood, the fresh air in Fraldarius that he swore to her would smell more like freedom than any city. She thought of Felix’s promise to take her up to see the cliffs that had hardened his expressions to loving stone. She imagined the two of them exploring the evening’s low tide and the pools left behind by the ripping waters that hollowed out the cliffs, as they searched among the sheltering fish and small, shelled creatures.

A throb in the top of her skull and her head grew heavy, growing heavy—No!

She focused on the thought of Felix drilling his swordwork like a legendary hero from a storybook—a page that she would have earmarked until the book opened automatically to it—his gaze intense, his knees bent and ready for anything. She imagined the careful practice it took him to train his muscles to endure each deliberate movement. They were so much like the careful drills of running musical scales. She entertained a world, a time and place, where their motions—the jabs of her bow, the swings of his sword—could synchronize.

All she had to defend herself was her innermost voice. Though her throat was already reedy and hoarse, she would use it until her vocal cords frayed and snapped like over-plucked piano wires. Because she had promised to take care of herself. And because ever since these kidnapping fools had tattled on themselves to Felix, there was hope. 

Simple rope gags couldn’t go deep enough to block out the thunder rising from Byleth’s throat, though the gags cut and chaffed the raw corners of her mouth. She could still hum because the body is a great reed, built around winged lungs, made for expressing its ache and outrage.

The first person to approach Byleth, syringe in hand, was the landlord. She had been waiting for him. The sounds from her hoarse throat focused on the hand holding the syringe. Though the hum was low and slow in her throat, its effects worked quickly.

Green vines grew throughout the man’s hands, starting with a bundle at the knuckles. They spread and bulged through the top of each finger.

“What—the fuck?” The man shouted.

Byleth watched coldly, as the vines slithered across his knuckles to chip off each of his fingernails, cracking through them like tree roots in limestone, to wriggle out through the nail beds. The man was screaming and screaming. The vines grasped for each other, trying to bring the hands closer together.

She made sure one of the vines wrapped around the glass syringe, until like a constricting snake, it crushed the glass, leaking the nefarious mutagen-cocktail down the man’s hand. The vines from one hand continued seeking the other. As they drew together, they grasped and twisted around the opposite wrist.

The man continued screaming, howling, and no one was coming to help him. As a pain-dealer himself, he was never personally prepared to take it, and Byleth’s growling throat was not ready to deal mercy.

Each vine-twist, each flail as they struggled to grow, rumbled the nerves in his fingertips. Their wrapping created manacles that held his wrists close. And then the vines aged and solidified like the trunk of a tree that grows brown and rigid after fifty years, effectively locking the hands in place.

The outcome might have been different if Byleth had been allowed to ask questions. That kindness, however, was denied her by the filthy gag, so she disposed of the man in the quickest way according to her bleary mind.

She allowed those vines to grow upward. His eyes were bulging large and his hands were not his own. Up and up, they grew to tickle the bottom of his nose, and then they plunged into his nostrils. She directed the vines to wiggle upward through the nose, into the skull, and with her cracking breaking throat, she used two sharp thorns to jab into the man’s brain. The vines laced through the frontal lobe and dug as deeply back as she had the strength for, until she felt dizzy and knew that a darkness was coming for her if she didn’t stop.

The man staggered, blood leaked from his eyes, carnivorous roots grasped hungrily for the rich fats of his brain tissue, and he collapsed to the ground. There was crashing in the other room—responses, she assumed, to her murderous actions.

The confrontation over, Byleth felt a wave of exhaustion harder still to overcome than the concussion surges. She tried to gather her spit and use it to massage her aching throat. Through her mind ran the mantra, _Stay focused, I must pull through. Stay focused, I must pull through_. More would come.

And more did come. Having seen what she was capable of, Solon sent a few at once. Byleth was too bleary to count them. All she knew was it was enough men to beat and silence her while they thrust the needle in.

 _What’s my strategy?_ asked the awake part of her brain, but her answers were messy, incoherent. She had to keep them as far from her as possible and make sure to smash that syringe. She found what little extant nature she could in the floor and started humming to it. Her throat, though, was already broken, and the loud bangs and yelling from the other room grew ominously louder, interrupting her concentration.

Little vines grew from the floor where the Agarthan’s feet were passing. They dug into their boots and wrapped their ankles, slowing them. She directed most of her energy at trying to trip the man. Although his footsteps slowed as he picked up his feet and ripped away vines, he stayed steady.

Byleth’s vision was growing blurry, her humming was reduced to spurts. The man stood over her with the syringe. Seeing her exhaustion, he didn’t even bother waiting for his reinforcements.

Byleth did not close her eyes.

She didn’t close her eyes as the man, who Felix would have known as Suspect 035, leaned toward her, cocky smile gleaming as he prodded her arm for a vein. She kept her eyes open as he flicked the syringe as if daring her to do something. She tried helplessly to find any bit of faith, to make any magical sound at all.

He angled the needle, and Byleth’s fuzzy brain slowly registered how soft and fragile this human skin was.

Though she was dizzy and her focus was shot, she saw a projectile speed in front of her face. Her open eyes witnessed the red handle of a knife sprout from the man’s neck. Blood followed, dripping down from the blade and pooling toward his collar before more crimson began welling into corners of his mouth. He collapsed at her feet, the syringe shattering under his body as it crashed against the ground. Nor were the others coming at her now to finish what he started.

She turned her aching head toward the doorway to see Felix where he stood in the threshold, another throwing knife already in his hand. Her eyes met his, a heartbeat of shock, fear, gratitude, and then he was running to her, as the other men frayed into battle with Sylvain and Ashe.

Fireballs and bullets flew behind them, as Felix kicked aside the man with his knife buried in his throat. Frowning, his eyes drifted over Byleth's old landlord on the ground. Then, he knelt in front of her and gently cut the gag away from her head.

“I tried to defend—” Byleth’s voice was a rasp an octave below her usual bell-like tones.

“I saw the wounds.” After freeing her hands, he put her knife back in one of them. “Found this.” She shook the circulation back into her wrists and arms.

“Have—viola?” Each word was a fire in her throat.

“It’s here.” He shrugged it off his back and opened the latches, looking at her meaningfully. He didn’t know what all she could do, but if the dead man with the vines up his nose was any indication, it was worth a try as they fought their way out.

“Behind you,” she hissed, as Solon’s stooped figure blocked the doorway.

Felix nodded.

From the bent of Felix’s shoulders, anyone would have believed his arms were wrapped around Byleth, offering comfort. Only the two of them knew that this wasn’t the case at all.

Because Byleth was burning with a cold anger and a hot adrenaline that had evened her out to an unprecedented nothing. And they both knew how foolish it would have been to let their guard down, right when Felix had found her at the source of all the commotion.

Instead, with one of his hands, he was grabbing the handle of a dirk that was dropping out of his sleeve. The other hand crossed in front of himself to grasp the comforting grip of his sword.

Gunshots fired behind them, four of them, two from each of Ashe’s hands. Then, something strange happened. The bullets never landed, as if they’d been stopped right out of the air.

Felix spun on the man behind him, unsheathing his sword in a precise arc and holding his dirk in his offhand.

Solon of the pale skin and bulbous forehead had clearly taken too much of his own medicine. He smiled infernally at Ashe’s bullets sitting in his palm, while Ashe blanched and backed toward the door. He raised his guns to take another set of shots at the old man, almost for the sake of science, to see what the man had done to catch them.

From the other side of the room, Sylvain conjured a fireball and sent it spinning toward Solon, but the fire merely dissipated when it hit the hunched figure. Yet, the bullets and the fire did something at least; they attracted the man’s attention. Solon didn’t see Felix stalking toward him, or Byleth consuming the last of her adrenaline to snatch her viola from its case.

Felix slashed at the man with sharp blows that should have maimed, while he parried the old man’s wooden baton with the dirk. However, nothing slowed Solon, not even his own blood welling in long streaks from Felix’s sword. He made chaos of the room with torrents of corrupted purple magic firing in so many directions, first at Ashe who dodged quickly and then at Felix, who winced as a purple flame burned his left arm, making him drop his knife.

Behind Solon, Byleth had gained her instrument. Her hastily overtightened bow rammed hard on the strings pulling an open double-stop on D and G, the bow’s pressure mutated the creaking sound into a snarl. She pulled the rough note across the strings, each centimeter fraying another horsehair. Over and over again she reset her bow in an angry chant, pulling it down and then looping her arm up and back down. Each reset frayed another five strands, and soon there would be nothing left.

With each bow-beat, Solon’s heart swelled larger and larger. Green fire blazed the heart. It burned up Solon’s cloak, allowing a view of monstrous ventricles, wide verdant arteries that were tangling and rearranging. Felix, still cutting toward Solon with his right arm, watched in horror as the heart perforated the walls of chest and skin.

Solon’s hands, wreathed in purple flames dropped to his side, as he looked hideously down at his chest. It was taking shape now, each reshaping ventricle making it look more like a flower. Enraged, Solon raised his hands and sent his flames at Byleth. The corrupted flames crashed her to the ground, her viola beneath her.

The damage, however, was already done. Byleth had warped Solon’s heart into a pulsing briar rose, complete with thorns that bound his chest in an abomination of sutures. Disgusted, Felix stabbed through the flower heart, causing the man to reel. And then, pulling out his sword in a quick tug, he spun it wide and decapitated Solon. The inert melon of his head fell and rolled to Byleth’s feet.

Watching the head of her enemy, Byleth’s eyes did not close to the violence.

* * *

After three days under Mercedes’ careful ministrations, Byleth’s bruises were lightening. Her skin was rehydrating and regaining its soft glow. The concussion rocked her in and out of sleep, but Mercedes was confident that Byleth would stabilize.

Felix cared little for his own wound, the purple burns that required him to be bandaged from elbow to shoulder. These burns had only gained significance as an excuse to visit Mercedes and thus to check on Byleth.

In that white bed, trying to regain her power, Byleth looked so small. She curled inward, like a butterfly retreating into its cocoon, and he couldn’t blame her.

Byleth had always seemed like someone who had stepped out of Felix’s fantasies: a tough wayfarer, a joyful traveler. He had always enjoyed the way her presence felt so incongruous with his modern world, such that, even as she healed from severe physical trauma, it was more by magic than medicine. And as with all fairytale creatures, Felix knew there must be a price to bringing her into his world.

And yet, he could imagine their relationship working. He would train an apprentice. That would give him time to travel with Byleth. Together they could relax into a new pattern, something a little more flexible, something a little closer to his fantasy.

As he was thinking about it, Byleth’s eyes flickered. She opened her mouth and took a burning, aching breath before her hand rose to massage the outside of her throat.

“Breathe through your nose,” Felix said, kneeling beside the bed. When she began to say something, he held his hand up. “Don’t talk yet. Didn’t Mercedes tell you to hold off for another day to let your vocal cords repair? I can make you tea for your throat.”

Byleth didn’t need Felix’s expression to communicate to her that he would go to hell and back for her, because he already had. Her eyes traced the bandage peeking out of his rolled shirt-cuff. He still had a hand up in the air, and she grabbed it. Interlacing their fingers at the knuckles, she brought the back of his hand to her lips.

“Oh, come on,” he said, wishing his breath wouldn’t catch so audibly in his throat. “It was nothing, just my job. It was in the public interest—you don’t even know what kind of menace you would have become if…”

She shook her head, and a tiny smile played at the corner of her lips. He raised himself to sit on the edge of the bed, while his other hand gently brushed the hair from her forehead.

Byleth doubled up her strength and used the hand she was holding to yank him closer. The movement ached one of her sore ribs and she left out a tiny gasp. “Okay okay,” he said. “Don’t hurt yourself.” Felix let himself lie down next to her on the bed.

Nothing was more safe than having Felix against her side, his small smile resting on the crown of her head.

“I love you too, you know.”

There was barely wind in her voice, and it fried at the end. But even if these were the last words her stupid voice could make, she wanted to tell him.

“That’s good to hear.” He wrapped her up into his arms, letting all his beating heart and breathing lungs hold her in place. 

* * *

Byleth remained in convalescence for three more days before she was allowed to stay with Felix. In the meantime, Felix’s work desk was piled with paperwork, including a carefully worded explanation, which was more Ingrid’s masterpiece than his own, regarding why a foreigner without a Crest had used magic to kill someone.

Felix’s department had also begun sending knights into the Agarthan haunts to root them out. As each building vacated, he marked them for other departments to plan their city developments.

The knights met little resistance busting up the Agarthan haunts, and many of them had already flown the coop. Felix attributed this to Solon’s death; cut off the head and the others scatter. The transformations had stopped as well, and yet, Felix continued looking for the Agarthan tattoo everywhere he went. It had become a habit, even when everyone was more than happy to believe the threat resolved.

“You’re moping,” Felix said. He had entered his condo to find Byleth staring out the window and absentmindedly feeding Zoltan way too many treats on the kitchen counter. He closed the treat container and Zoltan leaped from the counter. “I thought you would at least be playing. Where is your viola?”

“Can’t play,” Byleth mumbled. “The bow needs restringing and my bridge snapped that day.”

“Your what?” Felix looked alarmed. Mercedes had said that Byleth had managed to heal from everything, and Felix had never heard of body part called a bridge that would enable one to play a stringed instrument.

“Don’t look so scandalized,” she huffed a heavy laugh. It the first time he heard her laugh since their phone calls earlier that summer. “The part of the viola right here,” she made a less-than-helpful diagram in the air with her hands. “It’s a piece of wood that holds the strings up.”

“Can it be fixed?”

“I took it to the luthier today. But playing usually cheers me up, and…” Her far-away look was threatening to break his heart.

“Come on.” She let him lead her into the corner of his condo that he had set up for training. A punching bag hung by one wall, training weights were neatly arrayed on the other wall, and above them a collection of swords, some ornamental, others practical.

“I’m going to teach you to defend yourself, physically.” There was a grim edge in his voice. If Byleth had once found Felix’s weapons unnerving, he was beginning to feel the same way about the dark twist that her magic was taking. As far as he was concerned, it would be much better if she could protect herself without resorting to magic.

“I already know how to defend myself,” she put her fists up playfully.

“Not well enough. See the way you plant your feet like that, the way you do when you play music? You’re making yourself too heavy. That stance only works for huge people. For people like us, it’s best to stay light on our feet.”

Felix stood behind her, correcting her stance. That warm presence at her back went a long way toward banishing her moodiness. She wished he would ambush her a bit closer. On a whim, she stepped back into him, forcing him to catch her. Her spine tingled as he puffed a surprised breath against her ear.

Felix put his hands on Byleth’s shoulders and pivoted her around to face him. “Careful how you turn so that your feet don’t get tangled,” he said, smirking as she stumbled against him.

He righted her and stepped back, making himself a target from two meters away. “Come at me.”

So she did. She rushed him, feeling a surge of energy that wanted to hit him. She wanted to punch and kick. She wanted to kiss him and push him to the wall and hold him and fuck him. He blocked every swing she threw until she was just inches from him. She was still thrashing, when their knees interlocked and Felix grabbed both of her wrists to restrain her.

Eyes huge with surprise, he held her wrists until she stopped struggling against him. “I’m going to let you go now.” He opened his hands. “You really came at me.”

“I’m sorry,” she was looking at her hands, thinking that for a moment, it had felt good.

“Maybe music isn’t your only outlet. You could use the punching bag—with some gloves to protect those hands.” Byleth laughed as she stepped back from him. “I baited you, though. I wanted to see what you would do.”

“You said ‘come at me’. What was I supposed to do?”

“You’re not supposed to run at me like you’re a hundred pounds heavier than you are and made of muscle. You have to be clever and use weak spots. I’ll teach you some.”

She narrowed her eyes. “Can you teach me yours?”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

She came at him again, this time wrapping her arms around his neck. Her hands dipped into his collar, feeling the warmth from his shoulders, her hips leaned into his. He looked over her shoulder blushing like a teenager.

“Weak spots like this?” She raised her thigh between his legs letting it brush his crotch.

Felix breathed hard and stepped back, “I want to talk to you about something.”

“Oh no…” Byleth stepped back too, her face settling into cold confrontation.

“I—” Felix’s heartbeat was hitting the red zone, but no one could accuse him of being a coward, “I want you to stay by my side, stay in Fhirdiad, please!”

“Felix…” Here it was. He prepared himself to hear that she was leaving again. He would never be able to convince her to stay—even if she loved him, even if he loved her. This was their nature.

“What?” His voice ran harsh, already breathing the fire of rejection: the frustration that they would have to do this year all over again; the fear that they would be stuck in this loop for the rest of the time they knew each other.

“I already signed a year contract with the Fhirdiad Orchestral Ensemble.”

“You what? When? A year here?”

She nodded. “The Concert Master—Rhea offered it to me when I was healing.”

“And you signed it? You’re staying.” He brightened and took that step toward her.

“Yes.” She let her face relax. “So please… take off your shirt and touch me.”

There was a pause as Felix’s whole demeanor switched from dread to excitement. Byleth had half a second to register his wicked grin, the one she had been fantasizing about for a month, before it crashed down against her.

Then, she was feeling it from his kissing mouth, which couldn’t determine whether it would prefer to caress her softly or flay her open. She raised her head higher to fight back with her own lips and teeth, as her body did everything it could to give itself over to his hands. Her mouth opened to accept his vicious tongue.

Each movement whispered to her in Felix’s own love-language-isolate, which normally featured a thousand terse phrases for the idiom ‘I love you,’ the majority of them variations on _stay safe_. But tonight, as he pulled his tongue back from hers and looked her up and down, she learned another of these special _I love you_ idioms, “Lift your arms.”

Because he had her shirt bunched up from the bottom and was pulling it over her head and her arms. Then, the world narrowed to a dizzy dirtywhirl of choices: what to touch, where to kiss, what to look at.

He began at the elegant line of her neck, so similar to the shape of her instrument that he wondered what sounds she would make when he had her neck in his mouth. And his hands moving in paisley swirls along the lace over her breasts, as her nipples hardened and his knees felt weak. And then there was the problem that he still had clothes on and he was supposed to be taking off his shirt.

While he took his stupid time over-thinking and not thinking straight, he didn’t even notice that Byleth was pushing him up against the wall next to his bedroom door until he nearly tripped backward. He came up leaning against the wall with a loud thump that scattered the gray cat from his room into some other secret hiding space.

Byleth answered all his questions by placing his hands at the dimples of her back, living out her fantasy cut short that one night in the spring. While he massaged her hips and moved his hands up her back, notching fingers into her spine and curling them into her curves, her body involuntarily followed and pushed into every touch. Her hands rose to undo his shirt buttons, each one exposing the real flesh-and-blood Felix below the regalia of his work clothes.

“Don’t tell me you haven’t thought about this,” she said hoarsely, as she opened up the shirt to find a strap spanning his waist holding a thin knife and a utility of small objects. She plucked the strap like a sitar string, grinning mischievously as it snapped back against his hard waist. Felix’s eyes closed, his mouth dropped open, and the next thing he knew, he was closing it on Byleth’s collar bone.

His hair fell over her shoulders, and she took a begrudging break from undressing him to undo the hair tie and run her hands through it. He raised his head slightly, his eyes looking up at hers from below. He leaned into her hand indulgently as she ran it through his hair again. She felt ready to bottom out.

She unbuckled the strap from his waist and let his shirt drop to the floor, discovering another knife strapped to his right arm. Felix was muttering into her collar and then into her chest, _Yes, I have thought about this, every day, all the time_. Although she knew he was talking, all she could think about was how his moving lips felt against her chest. _But it’s a little different now because usually you’re all wet and that’s what gets it—_

“All wet? Who says I’m not?” she purred, pressing her hips into his.

Felix blushed the pink of the sun that would rise over Faerghus the next morning. Cheeks, high like the cliffs of Fraldarius burned under the blush’s rays, while Byleth spread him out on the wall. She found the scar that he had been shy about before and explored it softly with her fingers.

“No, I mean,” his hands reached out for a lifeline and found her ass to grope through her tight shorts, “You’re—we’re usually in the shower.”

As if just realizing what he was doing, he looked into her face to see her smiling at him. She laughed that strange, hoarse laugh from her recovering voice. It sent him pushing his whole pelvis into her and this time she could feel his hard line. As they moved together, her hands found another scar on his right rib cage.

“That sounds like a fun epilogue,” she teased, backing her ass up into his hands as she tilted her pelvis forward.

“Epilogue to what?”

But she didn’t have an answer because he began licking a hard nipple through her lace bra, and she didn’t want him to stop. She raised her leg, leaning her knee high against the wall to box him in. Then, she began pulling at his belt.

Felix grinned, knowing his body was at a full flush, knowing Byleth would see and know all of his little secrets: from the fresh bandage on his arm, to every puncture and scar and concealed weapon, every desire and kink and proclamation of undying affection. And suddenly, he realized that was what he wanted, to be seen by her. He wanted her to read it all on him like a page of music. He wanted her gasps to sing all the growing, loving things out of his stone vault of a heart, with his nature bared to her.

He leaned against the wall to hoist her thighs into his hands and pick her up. And Byleth learned then what a blessing it was to be carried by someone who was almost her size. When her body met his, it fit like a glove. The long-awaited dance of their seduction didn’t need to pause for transit between the wall of foreplay and the bed. Each step of the way, her skin was still against his skin, and her mouth was still exploring those remote Fraldarian cliffs of his chest. And her legs wrapped around and hugged him so that when he dipped her onto the bed, she brought him down with her. 

Together, piece-by-piece they disarmed him as if disabling a trigger-happy security system. “You have weapon garters, Felix? What good are these?” She asked, pulling a throwing knife from his bared leg. Its design was similar to the one that he used to save her in the lab. “How do you reach them?”

Felix’s murmur of _just in case_ became a pant as Byleth trailed her finger up his inner thigh. She kissed him where she had unbuckled each strap. For someone with the ability to heal, her mouth moving up his leg was preparing to straight-up obliterate him.

Byleth moved her mouth over his cock, giving warm, open-mouthed kisses that made Felix’s head drop to the pillow with a groan. Then, abruptly, he jerked up, surprising them both, “No, not that. Your throat is still sore.”

“I’m fine,” she was saying when he grabbed her arms and pulled her up into his embrace. “You don’t have to treat me like I’m made of glass.”

“I don’t plan to,” he growled before stripping away the rest of her clothes. There were no weapons to be found when undressing Byleth; she kept all of hers inside. Instead, he saw her bruises, deep purple whirlpools of underground blood with yellowing auras around them. He saw scratches and a cut under her jaw that would scar despite the healing.

He moved her gently on top of him before he drove himself home into her. Byleth’s hands left his chest to follow through his hair and slip behind his shoulders, while she pulled herself close, close, closer to him. Her eyes fluttered shut with their movement, and he could read every expression on her face as his storybook fantasy come to life. And this, he could finally feel secure in knowing, was just the beginning of their story.

Byleth’s voice was magic. Nothing had ever made him feel as good as her sighs and gasps. Nothing was as beautiful as the sight of her moving so freely over him. And when he was hitting all the right spots, she made breathy high-pitched sounds that grew red roses in the corner of the room.

The sense of the ending came with Byleth growing louder, until the bedside lamp flickered out, while thornless roses trellised their way up the wall. Felix relished the way she nipped at him, the way her hair dripped down into his, the way she had started throbbing around him, the way she was making him feel unbearably good, overwhelmingly, intensely, insanely, fantastically too too too too so much so much— His eyes squinted shut; his mouth widened. The last few jerks of his hips spent all the remaining energy he had, leaving him blissed and dumb, as Byleth fell beside him kissing his neck and brushing back his hair.

They rested. Because the threat was over, and they were in love. And probably, tomorrow, they would do it all over again, thank goddess.

* * *

Meanwhile…

The last true Agarthan was embedding every phoneme of his phone conversation with the calculations of a master plan. “Progress report?”

Kronya rubbed at her aching skin, her fingers dodging spots where the wounds from Byleth’s thorns plunged deep enough to damage her actual body. “The lab was a bloodbath, as you predicted. Solon’s dead, and I can’t use my Monica skin anymore.”

“Did you get anything into the girl?”

“No, she was such as nuisance. We could hardly get near her. Not to mention, Solon’s taunts worked a little too well, and her rescue party showed up right at the door.”

“On to Plan C,” Kronya shuddered something between dread and delight at the ice in Thales’ words. He would never stop his campaign for purity until he snuffed out every bright and organic, growing, living, loving thing. “It’ll be easy while Faerghus foolishly celebrates its half-victory.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Very unsexy deleted phrase:  
> Once you take his clothes and weapons away, Felix was as tender as crab meat. 
> 
> Anyway, Felix, put your pants back on, the story’s not over yet!


	7. Late Summer (draped in Tartans and Red Poppies)

Byleth kept the pollen out of Felix’s bedroom, despite how the walls, once as barren as the inside of a combination safe, were promptly jeweled in flowers. Every few days she used her knife to shear off fresh clematis and summer snow to hand out while she busked. _Gratis_ , of course; she had a job now and wouldn’t charge children for yellow roses.

Felix couldn’t complain about the flowers because it also meant he was getting laid. His breathing came easy that Summer, with another’s warmth in his bed making clothes irrelevant, with roses trellising his walls and Byleth humming his lights out.

The night that spots of glowing yellow first floated around the trellises, he thought Byleth had installed string lights throughout the vines. He considered it an odd choice but not one worth his concern as they dropped into contented sleep, legs tied up in knots.

The next morning, however, was a different story. “These are fireflies, Byleth. You’ve brought bugs into my condo?” Felix stood at the vines to peer down at the roosting insects, while expressions of disgust pursued awe across his face.

“I didn’t mean to—and it’s only the good ones!” Byleth’s smile had infiltrated the corners of her mouth. The kindly insects, unaware of lacking passport or visa, were blithely bustling through the secret flower-patch grown in the heart of Felix’s air-tight security. As if to corroborate her fascination, Zoltan began running his feet up the wall, chasing a firefly.

Felix reached out his hand to touch Byleth’s chin and guide her gaze away from the distracting cat, who had grabbed a glowing bug in his mouth and was about to spit the firefly back onto the carpet. They looked into each other’s eyes. “Please get these out of here.” He didn’t account for Byleth’s mouth moving downward against his hand. “You need to learn to control this better.”

Byleth pursed her lips around Felix’s pointer finger before taking it in her mouth and sucking it, her tongue running down the line of a scar healed paper-thin long ago. Authority utterly eroded, Felix’s eyes closed and his head tilted slightly.

She released his finger, “Control it? Even when…?” Her accusing eyes flicked between him and the bed: _How dare he tell her not to lose control?_

Felix shook his head and pulled his hand back. “Just find another way to express it. The flowers are fine; no bugs, though.”

Grinning, “I’ll get them all out after rehearsal,” and she reached up to kiss his humphing scowl right off his face.

* * *

Faerghus was trying to have fun. It was an awkward stretch for a kingdom that had long prided itself on discipline and tradition, anachronistically placing a sword in every youngster’s hand before turning them out to labor. Children grew there for the sake of practicality, much like the prickly scrub grass whose only purpose was to hold the soil against the snow-runoff.

Nonetheless, the King’s cabinet was planning Fhirdiad’s Equinox Festival, and it would be fun for the whole family.

The Fhirdiad administration spread surveys among the citizens to gauge public sentiment. _What sort of opportunities, personal or professional, would you like to see in Fhirdiad?_ asked one survey, while another one invited open-ended personal essays with, _Do you feel supported by your city? If not, what sort of public works would you use?_

Sylvain’s office received the responses in bushels. The citizens asked for more cohesive childcare programs. They wanted to remove combat-training from the mandatory school curriculum. They sought trade schools, as well as increased patronage for artists and performers.

The requests revealed just how much Faerghus was caught in a cycle of reviling its own soft power. Painters, musicians, and writers traveled to Fhirdiad to barter their creative opiates to a population that craved escape. But they didn’t grow that way there in Faerghus. Sure, it was no longer a holy kingdom; it had become a technological kingdom on the backs of its laborers, but did that mean it had to begrudge its people their fairytales?

The high of 'feeling needed' pumped Sylvain full of champagne bubbles. His gusto for scheduling local food and beer was matched only by the thrill his office enjoyed as they organized the festival’s tournaments and competitions.

Sylvain’s enthusiasm, however, had a limited infection rate.

Festival planning was a security migraine. Everyone had to be plainclothes, from the Crested academy sorcerers to most of the Kingdom Knights. They would be required to have fun with one eye on the horizon for ambushes.

No one, not even Sylvain, got a bigger kick out of Felix talking about ‘fun’ than Byleth. Every time he mentioned the wasted frivolity, she cackled. She would remind him that at least it wasn’t some awful ball—at a folk festival, at least, there would be sword competitions.

Her laughter couldn’t suppress all of his concern, however. Over the past few weeks, Felix had become convinced that the Agarthan threat was not over. Their disappearance was too easy. As if overnight, fresh paint covered their signs; the decals and stickers left only white residue on public surfaces; dense concealer hid incriminating tattoos. Nothing that was ‘over’ was this organized.

The Equinox Festival was a framing narrative of the Faerghus fairytale, and like the junkies they were, these Agarthans would be drawn to its lanterns and music.

If Byleth was concerned by any of this, she didn’t say. Now that she had a steady gig, her stories had more consistent characters: Annette and Mercedes featured heavily, as did Rhea the violinist. When Felix asked about Byleth about her training with Rhea, her words waned almost as terse as his: ‘Demanding’, he heard, and ‘slow’.

She and Felix spent their evenings together sparring, watching movies, and arguing over what they should eat, since they were both shitty cooks. Felix’s kitchen was stocked with an over-filled knife-magnet, but he had no pots. 

* * *

With late summer came cool air, breathing the winds that would pick up speed in Autumn and shriek through the trees. As long as the sun was up, they would be warm, but evening brought a chill that drove citizens inside from their porches and hushed the nights.

Autumnal winds still didn’t justify the furs of Fraldarian armor, but Felix had a modified form of his traditional dress for the festival. He wandered from room to bathroom just to put everything on.

While Felix dressed, Byleth admired the sword he had placed on the table. Long and broad, the tooled leather sheath bore knotted frames, each containing a detailed portrait in relief. The images showed a swordsman in different postures as he performed a move set. Byleth tracked the move lazily, her shoulders and hand positions mimicking the images, as she tried to imagine what it should look like.

Felix stalked up behind her, the hard line of his mouth reshaped by a smile.

“It’s a combat art called Finesse Blade. I could teach you.” He tucked a flyaway back into her hair plait.

“I assumed this one was just ceremonial.” Her fingers fell back to tracing the knot motif, which framed the image of a swordsman crouching low before he would leap upward in the framed box below.

“A dangerous assumption,” he slid the sword part-ways from its thick leather to show her the wicked edge of silver-and-steel alloy.

“Where do you get a sword like this?”

“Zoltan.”

Byleth’s eyes darted to the cat, who reclined on the couch observing their exchange, as if, on the moment, he might turn into a legendary swordsmith. Then, she shook her head.

Some would call it gullibility, but Felix knew better. He knew that no matter what the world threw at Byleth, she retained the stubborn capacity to believe it was more than met the eye. Unquestioningly, she enjoyed her private knowledge that anything could have a deeper presence. That, to Felix, really was the deeper faith magic.

“You named your cat after a swordsmith?”

“And if you had a cat, you wouldn’t name it after the greatest luthier in all the land?”

“I might, but I would be much more likely to name it something like Buttercup. Or, I would name it after the greatest swordsman I know.” She reached her hand up to tug his hair where it had been tickling her neck. “Felix would be a good cat name, don’t you think?”

Felix humphed and went back into his room. When he stepped out again he was wearing tight blue thigh-high gaiters wrapped over his teal trousers and soft teal vest. His head bent over his chest, as nimble hands fastened ornamental silver clasps over a white broad-sleeved shirt with checkered quilting.

“Is that how people dress in Fraldarius? You’ll be too hot in that.”

He slid a smirk at her and knelt to tug the boot up higher. “Get your mind out of the gutter. It’s historical regalia, only for special occasions.”

“But, I mean you’re literally going to be hot in that.” Byleth fanned herself with her hand for emphasis.

Felix shuttered an annoyed glare as he fastened his sword belt against his hips. “And you’re going to be cold in that.” He eyed her soft gray dress with its long slit up one leg, “As soon as the sun starts to go down.”

“I’ll find a way to stay warm.” She looped a finger into the top sword strap and drew him closer, gratified as his hands reached for her hips, heat engaging them through the thin material. Byleth’s bared leg raised through the dress’s long slit to rest against his hip, preparing to wrap him in.

* * *

The Equinox Festival sprawled its presence in a web of noises, odors, humans, and booths. Ordinarily, this would have thrown Felix into complete disarray. Fortunately, his path through the carnival was simple: he was to stick by Blaiddyd and keep him safe.

Blaiddyd held a makeshift court on stools as if there were no such things as the computers and technologies that automated all these political processes. There, as their king, he offered his humble conversation to all who approached. 

Standing beside Dimitri and keeping watch of the crowd, Felix kept his ears perked for the music coming through the streets. He wouldn’t hear Byleth particularly until they moved to the assembly-space for the evening entertainment, but that didn’t stop him trying.

Blocks away, Byleth was playing among the Fhirdiad ensemble. Just for the event, they had rehearsed a wide repertoire of historical folk tunes to play in the open-air theater. In between orchestral sets, locals performed: Alois pierced the air with his bagpipes, and a dance troupe hopped across the stage.

Byleth stood with Ingrid listening to a famous Adrestian singer. Later on, Byleth would have had difficulty recalling what the song was because she had been caught up in admiring her friend’s blue tartan plaidie, embroidered in knots so intricate that even the eye couldn’t untangle them.

Ingrid’s woven hair plait softened her features. As did the singer, who just then ran down from the stage. Before the lawyer could twice bring her hands together, the singer grabbed Ingrid’s blushing face and planted a kiss on her. The crowd around them wolf-whistled. Byleth’s own whistle grew a small patch of lilies that she promptly plucked from the ground and shoved into Ingrid’s hand to offer to the enchanting singer.

“This is Dorothea,” Ingrid introduced them, cheeks redder than Alois’ kilt. “She sings for the Mittelfrank Opera Company in Adrestia. Byleth’s a violist.”

“Oh, how refreshing, thank goddess,” Dorothea said warmly, smiling at Byleth as if they were sharing a private joke.

“Why’s that?” Ingrid asked, her eyebrows lowering falcon-sharp over her eyes.

“Oh, hon,” Dorothea said, rubbing Ingrid’s shoulder, “violists have a reputation for being the slackers and stoners of the orchestra, but anyone with taste knows that they’re the most fun at a party.”

Byleth chortled down into her beer, “Finally, someone who knows their way around the orchestral pit.”

Friends wove in and out of their chatter. A dapper Sylvain, his neck tied in a red-and-blue silk kerchief joined them, before promptly secluding one of Byleth’s musician friends. A soft-spoken Ashe, incognito in fawn-brown plaids and his usual bomber jacket, gave Byleth the details on the storytelling booths. Annette and Mercedes brought an entourage of children in their wake as they performed magic tricks with sparklers and fireworks.

The sky above the festival grew darker, heralding the balanced equinox that would usher in the Autumn. Chatter and laughter rose to permeate the city stonework. By the light of a myriad lanterns, the orchestral ensemble began playing again, their backs to the sunset’s orange glow. The assembly square teemed, while the officials and the King’s cabinet took their spots in the stands.

The orchestra fell silent, the crowd hushed, and King Blaiddyd stood to speak.

Beside him, Felix could just make out Byleth’s shape. Using her as a touchstone, he scanned up the aisles. He traced Blaiddyd’s exit strategy, which would take him straight up to the capitol.

Then he saw it. At first, he thought the crepuscular soldier might have been a dread hallucination. But there were more of them, slithering below the lanterns and up the theater aisles.

Felix’s eyes flicked back toward the capitol to make sure of their exit path again, and his throat burned like a hot coal. Monsters had dropped in as if from thin air, and they were blocking the way. They swayed their talons on the capitol steps. Some began to make their way up the aisles toward the assembly.

Acting on instinct, Felix drew his large sword and crossed it in front of Blaiddyd to block an assassin’s strike. He angled the sword and thrust it. The assassin’s eyes glazed as she fell backward and down, her blood marking the first casualty.

He could hear Dimitri ranting behind him. Dimitri’s rage was a welcome inevitability. The more the King raved for vengeance, the closer to the Boar he drew, and the less Felix would have to worry about him.

Dedue stepped in front of Blaiddyd, and Felix began defending an arc around them. Plain-clothes knights and agents began stepping out of the crowd to protect the civilians, as the rancor of screams ripped the air.

From where she was sitting, Byleth’s eyes met the Concert Master’s over the other violinists’ heads. They had stacked the orchestra for this, and yet each person in the ensemble seemed to vibrate nervously like sympathetic strings. Rhea jerked her head, and the first violin section stood to begin protecting the civilians. They were joined by Crested sorcerers who popped out of the crowd to begin facing off with the monsters.

Byleth stood and struck an open G; it screeched, ragged and incomplete. Monsters howled as if in pain, and the lantern fires shined brighter. She double-stopped it with her open D, and the line of incoming cultist soldiers seemed to slow in their tracks.

That was all the lead up she needed to begin her medley. As if sewing a quilt, her bow was a needle that threaded together all her melodies—the pieces she wrote to commemorate her father before his high-land folk tunes had left her bloodstream; the thematic music that told stories from Fodlan’s landscapes; the _Wailing_ and the _Places to Rest_ ; the _Chasing Daybreaks_ , the _Edges of Dawn_ ; and with no effort at all, _Between Heaven and Earth_ rampaged from her bow.

Of course, though Byleth led the song, the violists were not to solo. Byleth’s friend, the lavender-haired violinist stood and directed his section to begin playing with her. A sleepy cellist with sea-weed green hair, once seen lurking the sorcery academy’s library, sighed and joined in. Those musicians with minimal faith magic, found a strength in their strings that they had never known, as the green-haired section leaders amplified the songs with their magic.

Creeper vines rose through the ground, breaking concrete and stone as they grew. They grasped the feet of the Agarthan attackers, tripping and binding them. They slowed the men advancing toward the King’s retinue.

Byleth’s eyes attempted to focus on the spot where Felix was demonstrating just how ceremonial his sword was, while he twirled with his attackers like bloody dancers in the dark. Though sorely tempted to distraction, she stayed on the melody, pulling it grittily from her bowstrings with a rosined friction so great it felt as if it were transporting the string whole meters for its vibration, as opposed to the mere millimeter.

The second violinists soared high in their harmony. They added thorns to the vines that Byleth’s violists had drawn from the ground. At the same time, Rhea’s violinists played a counter-melody that built protective hedges around the civilians. The hedges rose high above their heads, blocking them from harm, even as they screamed and sought any direction for flight.

Affected by the compounded faith and reason magic, the monsters’ skin tinted green and softened. Weeds grew to restrain them. The high lacy flowers of wild carrots emerged from their noses, while lichens attached to the cracks in their scales, and their toxins turned to bustling bushels of baby’s breath.

Those closest to the music found their talons turning to wooded roots that immediately began seeking the ground. Tree limbs burst through the monsters’ heads like cordyceps, staking them into the ground, as leafy fresh branches bent in gnarls with every shake of their desperate attempts for freedom.

The Agarthan cult was not stupid, or some of them weren’t, at least. They could tell the source of the faith magic, and they began rushing toward the orchestra. The musicians began growing their own fortifications and shields.

The magic from their music leeched health from the oncoming warriors, as it returned vitality to the back to the sorcerers. Yet, no one knew how long they could go on. Few had done any kind of magic before, and their stamina was already flagging. Even as giddy as they were to discover their power, they were beginning to feel the limits of their magic.

Together they all played _Between Heaven and Earth_. The sections began deviating, adding choruses and mutations on the piece that Byleth had never imagined. These variations grew a grove of trees that hemmed in the larger force of Agarthans storming toward them.

As the Agarthan force advanced, their hooded mages diseased the new-growth trees with corrupting purple spells that twisted their boughs and stained their bark. Annette and Mercedes ran to the musicians’ aid. Using their state Crest, they began casting spells to protect the musicians.

However, Byleth’s focus had shifted to watch the droves that were descending on the king and his shield. With her violists, she grew a line of trees that narrowed the onslaught’s approach to a march of barely two across.

By this time, Dimitri was adding his own gun to the fray. His single eye, shockingly a dead shot, blazed his fury, as he picked off cultists out of the range of his swordsman and his axeman. Byleth urged vines to twist the feet of their attackers, making easy targets of the cultists even for the small artillery in the King’s hand.

As Felix flashed with his sword, he cut down the front line—fast and untouchable. Each intentional stroke spilled blood, and as it fell to the ground, crimson alpine poppies bloomed in the grass. Blood ran down from his sword-tip and another poppy grew where it fell. Felix had no time to wonder about it; here, again, he was fulfilling his role.

White and green magic fought the purple. Metal weapons bit harshly against metal weapons. And it almost seemed beautiful; it almost seemed choreographed; it almost seemed too easy, too simple, too fine. Byleth almost felt too whole; she almost felt too strong.

Then, the sound of a gunshot rang out, and Felix staggered.

The truce of non-mechanized warfare was broken. It broke the choreography. It disrupted the predictability. It was the opposite of music. It was the sound of the world ending.

Byleth didn’t know which was screaming more, her own throat or her viola.

Felix had snapped back. He stood, wide eyes, haunted by the ghost of a memory—here, too, would be his end with blood poppies at his feet. In the book of Felix’s life, it was fitting that—like his brother, like his father before him—he would meet his fate by bullets ripping through his too-soft interior. His life had always been designed as a sacrifice to save his King.

Byleth’s scream hit the air, louder even than the gunshot. Before any part of Felix could move, a woody shield had sprung from the ground in front of him. It was a shield of vines so dense and hard, so calcified and petrified, she might have raised the bones of the ground. Felix dropped to his knees behind it; his head hit the ground.

Pulling Dimitri down behind the shield as well, Sylvain used a reason spell to send an Agarthan into the earth. Confusion broke out worse than ever. The King sprang from behind his guard and ran for the gunman who had shot Felix. Blaiddyd dodged through the chaos with unnatural agility before letting his rage crush the man.

But the war of limited firearms, the truce of magic, was over. Gunshots range over both the cabinet members and the musicians as they ducked in a wave of chaos. All together, sorcerers from all backgrounds made one last effort to fortress them off.

Marking the borders of the battle, they used the lines of the trees that they had grown. They expanded these, making them grow dense and tall, their trunks broadening to block anyone coming or going, their boughs reaching and reaching to the sky before bowing in. It became a cathedral of trees grown around them that blocked out much of the night sky and held them cloistered.

The sorcerers were exhausted, spent; their bones showed opalescent through their skin. For a while, they would be safe in their tree retreat. It wouldn’t be long, however, until they were under siege. The knights quickly rounded up those Agarthan soldiers that were on the wrong side of the battle line, subduing them and tying them up.

Did it matter, though? Byleth had seen Felix fall and now she couldn’t see him. She couldn’t see him anymore, and how could any of her faith be strong enough to grow roots to save him faster than a bullet could launch into his body?

Byleth was shaking, a leaf on the wind that would soon blow away. Because she had been trying to root, to make a stable life, and now she would be set free again. What a miserable thing.

Lost were the images of Felix drilling with his sword, the thoughts of train rides with her hand in his, taking him to see the bright warm lands outside of his gray stone home. Lost was the way his body had fitted hers perfectly, his raven hair falling feather-soft around her head as he kissed her in bed, his quiet confidential smiles. Lost was the satisfaction of playing music for him and watching all the weight ease from his limbs. Lost was the secret language they had been teaching each other for months, the promise of fluency just around the corner.

All her faith fled from her, and Byleth collapsed. Her viola and bow fell, making soft thuds into grasses that were rapidly growing to cushion them all. The kindly herbage pillowed her head, making it difficult to see where her green hair ended and the pale green things that sought to comfort her began. Red poppies grew around her, sentinels nodding their heads in the stifling air of the forest enclosure. Thus Byleth slept.

* * *

Civilians huddled in the theater space once occupied by the orchestra. They used note applications on their phones to compile shareable lists and descriptions of missing loved ones. Chain calls of _have you seen…?_ ran from person to person. Medics from the sorcery academy made their way through the crowd, using their last energies to care for the wounded.

The knights were already attempting to regroup in the clearing. They traded weapons, preparing those who had lost their arms. They made sure that everyone had a firearm since that was how the battle had turned. Dorothea and Mercedes, hands full of tourniquets made from tartans sold at the festival, worked through the knights healing yet more wounds.

Musicians lounged against the very trees they had given their own spirit to grow. Their heads lolled, as they took some much-needed rest. Volunteers brought around fried fish from the carnival trucks that had been trapped inside the wooded cathedral. Small bands of street performers and local shopkeeps stood with their heads bowed together discussing what they could do to help.

Talk spread everywhere. Dire rumors shook their confidence. _What would they see when the cathedral came down?_ They imagined their safe-haven a prison of impotence while enemies entered their city. _Would they place an Agarthan on the throne? Would the rest of the city be overrun with monsters?_ They wondered aloud whether those who had not attended the festival were safe, or perhaps the Agarthans were storming their homes as they spoke.

Felix felt strong arms pick him out of his crouch and lean him against the vines. “You’re okay, buddy,” his tall friend said, smiling at him with such a weary relief it brought Felix out of his mind-muddle. “This big weed saved you. You should see the number of bullets in the other side.” He seemed as if he was going to whistle for emphasis, but nothing came.

“Sylvain, where is she?” Felix rubbed his forehead and then his chest where the bullet had hit him. He found the small piece of metal, a .22 like he used. It hung in his chest armor, stopped by the last layer of his protective vest. How long had he blacked out?

“She passed out, but Mercedes says that she’s stable. Fe, you need to rest too—you’re sure to have a few broken ribs. And…” Sylvain grabbed the back of his hair as if that would make the bad news easier to say, “We’re going to have to fight our way out of this thing.”

Felix nodded. His tinnitus was a bug constantly whining in his ear. He had difficulty regulating his breath from where the bullet had winded him. “Blaiddyd?”

“He’s fine. Raving, basically foaming out the mouth, but fine.” That was a problem they would have to deal with, but they could give it time. Maybe Dimitri would simmer down on his own. After all, he was trapped in a holding woodland with many of his citizens. If he threw a fit, they would all know. 

“I want to see her, Sylvain.”

“She’s over there,” Sylvain pointed to a spot in the clearing near the congregation of knights.

For the first time, Felix took a moment to marvel at their holding cell. Grass pushed up through the grout and stonework across the entire area. Trees grew up through asphalt and concrete. City walls were covered in lichen and moss. The immobilized forms of monsters skulked like gargoyle topiary covered in white flowers. He looked up to see impossibly tall trees reaching over them in a dome. At his feet were poppies of the most saturated red he had ever seen. He understood it now; Byleth had done this.

“We’re supposed to let her sleep,” Sylvain said, but Felix was rushing in the direction of his pointing finger.

Where she slept, Byleth’s peaceful form belied the ringing in Felix’s ears. Her plait coiled into grass looking like all the vines she kept pulling out of the world to save them. Flowers had risen around her—thick-petaled lilies, bright and lucky daisies, an ex-temporal narcissus with petals hay-fever yellow.

He kneeled into Byleth’s nest of flowers, wanting to see her throat moving, needing to witness her signs of breath. He tried not to hover too close, not to disturb her peace. As he shifted to sit down, his knee disturbed a lily, sending orange pollen straight into his face. He sneezed.

And again, he sneezed. And he sneezed again. He was crying, an automatic function of his body to expel all the allergens.

Byleth’s eyes snapped open. She looked up, and her green irises were refreshed of their faith the moment she saw him. “You’re alive.” Then, when he didn’t say anything, “You’re alive?!”

“Yes,” he sneezed again, “thanks to you,” his voice was thick. The sneezing hurt his aching ribs. Felix was searching his hidden pockets for any kind of tissue. He found a dozen knives and no handkerchief.

But Byleth didn’t care that he was a mess or that he was covered in the blood. She didn’t care that his eyes were puffy and his ears were ringing and mucus was running down the back of his throat. She threw her arms around his neck.

“Byleth, I have to wipe my nose.”

“I don’t care!” She started kissing him all over his face, not stopping at his wet nose or his grumpy grimacing. When she finally felt like she could stop, she reached into her pack for the soft cloth she used to clean resin from her viola, “Here.”

As he wiped his nose, she kept crowding in and spreading chaste kisses all over him—his face, his forehead, the top of his head. He let himself relax into these butterfly-soft pressures. Once he felt more stable, he gathered her up to hold her between his legs—his body holding and shielding her, his head bowed over hers.

Perhaps it was the pollen; likely, it was the exhaustion. But also the exact opposite, that intense relief of seeing each other breathing: when they tilted over in that hold, they convalesced into dreamless recovery.

Tomorrow would be the first day of Autumn. Tomorrow, they would have to fight their way back out of the sanctuary that faith had created. For the night, though, in the sheltering arms of the cathedral trees, they rested.


	8. Autumn

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We are all in for a treat! [endspire](https://endspire.tumblr.com/) has illustrated a scene from the previous chapter with [this beautiful comic](https://twitter.com/end_spire/status/1275265309281222657?s=20). Go check it out!
> 
> Also, I thought I'd link some boss battle music if that's something you're into. Here's [Between Heaven and Earth](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Y5GDoLbeBs) and here's [ God-Shattering Star](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0WMYL6HuUoI), which is what I imagine Byleth playing when she confronts Thales.

“Look at you, sleeping on the job.” Stress and relief tugged at Ingrid’s teasing words, the tension pulling like a dual-lined kite, as she knelt beside Felix. In better political conditions, the weather would have been perfect to fly such a kite, what with little breezes that stirred the grasses around himself and Byleth. He shook the thought from his head—out with the groggy dreams.

On the first day of Autumn, Felix crouched and looked around, as his mind pieced together the events of the ambush. They had been ready, though not ready enough. He could hear the Agarthan forces outside the sanctuary, making muffled gunshots where they were attempting to blow holes in the trees. The sound of monster roars rose periodically over the boughs.

Inside the enclosure, everything was strangely hushed. Where Byleth slept, dappled sunshine lit her face, and flowers swayed against her.

Felix rose to follow Ingrid back to the King. Mercedes was waiting for him with her bandages and her healing Crest. Blaiddyd paced. Each footstep compounding on an already worn tread whose friction mowed down the grass.

“Has he rested?” Felix asked Sylvain who looking warily at the King. Mercedes waited in the wings to take him aside to check his ribs. 

“Dedue and I got him down for a few hours, but now he’s popped right back up. Ranting about the past, responsibility, your dad… He’s not speaking to ghosts yet, at least. I’m almost hoping he collapses, so we can take care of him.”

“No chance of that,” Felix reached up to retie his hair and winced at the stretch. “Shit.” It allowed Mercedes to swoop in, bandages in tow.

“Mmhmm,” she said gently leading Felix away. “I saw that.”

Sylvain followed, filling Felix in on the state of things. It boiled down to: We still don't know much. They had used makeup from one of the story-telling booths to give Ashe an Agarthan tattoo, and the sniper was out there scouting. Felix had to admit that he would have done the same thing or gone himself.

“Is he due back yet?”

Sylvain put his hand on the other man’s shoulder. “Any minute now.”

As Mercedes, poked him and conjured white light at his injuries, Felix’s head revolved throughout the space, mapping the landscapes: human, municipal, and now natural. 

The civilians had grouped into their own supportive units. Some of them were joining the Knights, offering their ability to fight for Fhirdiad. And of course, there would be no way to keep Dimitri out of the action either.

The biggest problem was the guns. Even if everyone had a gun, everyone was also vulnerable. There was no skill or reasoning with modern warfare. It was all a gamble.

As Annette walked toward him to tender the sorcerers’ reports, Felix let himself look back to where Byleth was beginning to stir.

“Byleth,” Ingrid was saying, kneeling beside her, “You have to eat something. You’ll wear yourself down to skin and bones.”

As Byleth sat up, she began searching the ground, hands groping for a presence that had been there the last time her eyes were open. She saw the impression of his body in the sheltering grasses.

“If you’re looking for Felix, he’s over there, hatching a plan,” Ingrid said. Byleth looked over to see the King was circling himself like a caged lion, shaking out unruly blond hair as he paced. Felix stood still nearby, narrowed eyes on the Blaiddyd’s movements. Sylvain was leaning against one of the newly grown trees, hands behind his head trying to act casual. “You can come join us once you eat.”

The trees trapped in heat, and Felix had rolled up his shirtsleeves to reveal a slash crusted over in brick-brown blood that ran across his bicep. Another wound he hadn’t shown Mercedes. Byleth grabbed a cotton scarf and began wrapping his arm. Felix turned toward her, “It’s fine, don’t waste your energy.” But Byleth was already shaking her head and pulling her viola into position to pluck some sweet pizzicato that calmed the stinging. Felix wrapped an arm around Byleth’s shoulders, as he pulled her against his side and faced her toward the group discussion.

“What do you think? After all, none of us would be safe right now without that plan you and Rhea made.”

But Byleth did not answer the big questions. She had barely dealt with killing a man. She had barely wrapped her head around falling in love.

And now, more big questions were coming from Felix’s mouth: big, like who to save, spare, and pardon; big, like who deserves to live and die; big, like guessing the infection rate of a hateful ideology that sought to erase all things beautiful and complex.

“I think we should spare whoever we can.” Felix’s expression told her that he had guessed her response. And though it was a soft one, perhaps even weak, his hand found Byleth’s. “I think we should try for healing.”

Dimitri’s glare at Byleth was bloodshot; instead of arguing, though, he just snarled and kept pacing.

“Faerghus has dealt with incidents like this in the past, right?” she continued more quietly. “Maybe all this fighting just gives more incentive for revenge.”

Sylvain’s head popped up like he was about to say something, and then he sank back against the tree. Felix squeezed Byleth’s hand before dropping it.

A faith sorcerer from the academy opened a space in the trees near them. As the trunks shifted aside, it was like looking through a portal into another world. On one side was their stifling sanctuary; on the other was Fhirdiad under siege. Cultists milled around and crowded close to the trees, while Ashe darted into the sanctuary like a jack-rabbit. The sorcerer hurried to close the gap.

“Catch your breath,” Felix said, handing him water.

When Ashe had gathered himself, he started in, “Everyone’s outside. The whole city, knights are gathered, and they’re faced off with the Agarthans. No one’s fighting yet. They’re all waiting for us—waiting for him.” He looked at Dimitri and blanched slightly when the King’s narrowed eye zeroed in on him. 

“And the leader?” Felix asked.

“Waiting on the capitol steps,” Ashe said after another gulp of water.

“Citizens in the way?” Felix’s eyes shifted to Byleth who had summoned Rhea to her side.

Ashe nodded.

“And the firearm situation?”

“Prevalent.”

“We can take care of that,” Byleth spoke looking at Rhea.

“What?”

“If we destroy the firearms, fewer innocent people will be hurt. But that would also include yours,” she said, looking from Ashe to Felix and then back.

Ashe shrugged. He didn’t know what Byleth was planning, but he was ready to believe anything of her abilities. “If you do that it will make the civilians safer, and I bet most of those thugs wouldn’t know what to do.”

“Let’s shut down the guns, then,” Byleth said to Rhea.

“I’ll go talk to the others,” Rhea was already hurrying away.

“What else do you know, Ashe?” Felix asked, focusing back on the task.

“They have monsters with them, more of them. The opposition is led by a man called Thales. He’s terrifying. I think he’s taken some of these mutagens himself.”

“We’ll send the reason sorcerers after the monsters. Byleth and the faith sorcerers will deal with the guns. Our retinue will go up the center and take down Thales. Clear?”

As they each nodded, their faces all held a kaleidoscope of expressions: fear and worry, determination, and desperation. Only Byleth’s expression remained empty.

“Let’s consider the best way to open this shelter and get everyone out. We’ll need multiple exits, or they’ll pick us off as we leave. But we can’t open the whole thing at once,  
or we’ll risk mass hysteria…”

* * *

It’s said that Ottoman armies would play loud brass to intimidate their enemies during a war march, using brash tones to incite battle. Strings, on the other hand, did the opposite; they soothed and relaxed.

The music that Byleth led, from the bagpiper’s buzzing drones to the violinists’ lofty melodies, sought to amplify the faith magic with every note and trill. Dorothea added her voice to the wind, as all together they sought to open their adversaries from the inside out. Melodies wrapped into those listening, each exposing a great and daring fragility in the human spirit. From those open soul-wounds, the magic began healing the hearts of those who had lost their way in the unreal city.

The song was a reminder that it was only human—oh so human—to yearn for more than you have, while time pressure-cooked the world around you to a numb routine and an abject loneliness that dimmed your shine day by day. And perhaps it was also human to seek violence, to seek a change that made promises with its abrupt reversal, even as it chained the brutal and the cruel to the stones of servitude.

It called out their sham utopia. Because the music wanted these people as nothing had before. It sought communication. It sought to heal. These haunting songs were only a threat to one person in that city: Thales. For the others, it would bring relief.

Felix could hardly believe that he was allowing the faith sorcerers to lead the way into battle. You don’t put the unarmored on the front-lines. And when projectiles began flying toward the musicians, his fears were confirmed.

It began with one gunshot, from a solitary, scared human who could not abide such a song. The bullet struck a violinist who fell, instrument crashing below them, onto the paving stones and baby grass.

Then, another wave of gunfire came from those who were over-eager. Many of the sorcerers were able to erect their own shields before this wave could touch them. Not all the shields rose from Fhirdiad’s stubborn ground in time, and another musician fell. The knights began shooting back at the Agarthans, and the noise made a great thunder, as mechanized war broke out, just as they had feared it would.

Even as their numbers fell, their melodies, as if drawn from their instruments with a will of their own, grew more sorrowful. Yet the musicians continued. They borrowed the health from the attackers to heal themselves. Growing strong from it, they drew up the nature around them, and just as Byleth had promised, they eroded the mechanized warfare with their roots.

Vines grew like kindly earthworms from the barrels of the firearms. Small root tendrils soaked up the oils in the guns’ joints. The first shot from a compromised weapon misfired, causing the gun to blow in the man’s hand. As he stumbled back, nose a bloody mess and face flecked with small burns, he looked as if he had lit a roman candle at his own face.

Nearby two other men dropped their guns to the ground. Those that held tightly to their firearms found the white flowers of surrender, spitting from the barrels. Ashe lifted one of his own guns to see it covered in a web of small thorns and vining filaments. He threw down both his firearms. Taking out his dirk, he prepared for the hand-to-hand confusion that would come. Felix did the same; his gun fell forgotten, as a knife slipped from his slashed sleeve into his hand and his other arm reached across for his sword.

The musicians had done it, they had disarmed the modern world and taken the fire from its arms. Many of the musicians fell back now, seeking shelter once more in the tree sanctuary.

Whole bands of cultists took this opportunity to flee the outskirts, while others used the distraction to draw close to the knights for hand-to-hand battle. Those with magic used it, as the Kingdom’s sorcerers and their allies, led by Rhea on one side and Annette on the other, sent spell after spell—seraphims and auras—against the beasts that were already spitting poison at everyone in range.

Felix and Ashe cut through the center, braced by knights who were urging the faith sorcerers to fall back and care for the wounded. Felix found Byleth, her hands moving faster across the strings of her viola than he had ever seen them.

“Fall back!” he yelled and grabbed her bowing arm until it jerked a screech across the strings. “Go back to safety.”

Byleth’s face was brave and clear when she said, “No.” And whether either of them knew it or not, this was another of her big answers to Felix’s big questions, they would go into the fray together.

The musicians who had fallen back continued playing their healing harmonies. The music soothed some of the lesser Agarthans who retreated from their rampage. Those who were too far gone engaged in ragged hand-to-hand combat with Kingdom Knights that quickly devolved into dirty, desperate brawls.

They moved up the hill toward the steps. Ashe, a long knife in each hand, jumped forth to draw Kronya’s attacks as the woman swung out at him with a bladed whip. They whirled an impossible tango. Each parry bounced one another like pinballs from one side of the central clearing to the other. At times, their duel broke through the battle lines, hurtling the others—brawlers, swordsmen, lancers, and ax-handlers—out of the way of their whirlwind.

Felix and Byleth, however, were not to be distracted, as they moved toward Thales.

Unlike Solon, Thales was fond of games. He was a glee-less puzzler, an unanswerable riddler, a cold snake of a man. Thales had a wit and intelligence that might have enthralled one as a young thing, but years down the line becomes repugnant when it begins to take action.

He attacked the weak spots. His spells threw Fhirdiad’s defenders into disarray, as he ruptured the ground beneath the civilians and the healers. What some would call war crimes, he called strategy and means to an end, as he taunted the Kingdom Knights by striking at the defenseless. “Get people inside,” went the roar around the knights. “It doesn’t matter where, get them all inside.”

Byleth felt herself hesitating, as murky thoughts slithered their way into her head. The worm of thoughts wriggled and forced entry to her memories. It whispered across her synapses in the most frigid voice she had ever heard, but its arguments were clean and compelling.

_That hair, those eyes. I can see your blood. I can know your fate._

The earth rumbled beneath them. Stones came loose and Felix stumbled. The music felt so far away now, and Byleth was no longer part of it, her hand holding her viola down at her hip.

_You needn’t bind your fate to Fhirdiad. You are a free person, and you can live out that freedom however you want. How dull it must be to find yourself stuck inside a gray and broken city…_

The sky appeared to darken, and a purple tinge colored everything Byleth saw. Thales was holding Felix at bay and parrying his attacks with minimal effort. Felix had never looked so small before as the pale leader of the Agarthans continued to brush off each of his advances.

_Indeed, all of these followers are free people in this world. They chose to follow me—Thales—through their own judgment. For their own wellbeing._

Byleth heard screams coming from the streets and inside houses. She saw knights bloodied from combat.

_Why lower yourself? Decrease your potential? Sacrificing your future by binding your fate to a slavish mentality like that of Fraldarius._

Thales was drawing her in, pulling her toward him. There was no telling what he would do when he had her—kill her? Or use her against the city? Byleth’s grip was loosening on her viola. She had no defense blocking her, no inclination, even, to make any musical sound that could stop it.

_The Shield’s loyalty is too easily bought. He uses you for your adventurous spirit. He uses you because he’s ordinary. Boring. Nothing. Work-bound and already uxorious—_

Byleth’s foot caught on a loose paving stone, and pain shot through her leg as she unearthed grasses that touched her ankle. Between the pain and the green tendrils, the disruption was enough to shake Thales’ voice momentarily from her head.

This was stupid, she thought in tones of soft green that began approaching the worm-like shadow presence in her brain. If Felix was uxorious, it was because Felix loved her. And his loyalty was one of the most guarded treasures in the Kingdom, certainly not for sale. Byleth had told him she loved him, and she wouldn’t have said that unless she meant it.

Feeling his grip slipping, Thales raised his hand and the ground shook, creating cracks and fissures in the stonework.

Her ankle twisted painfully, as another paving stone slipped from beneath her foot. Stumbling, she almost dropped her instrument. Felix rushed past. His eyes flashed to look at her, assuring himself that she was okay.

Thales sent another quake through the ground, and it sent Byleth falling onto a knee. Automatically, her head turned to check on Felix, assuring herself that he was okay. With every gesture between the two of them, the dark voice in Byleth’s head grew quieter and quieter.

Felix wasn’t ordinary or slavish. He was the hero from her story, the hero from the folk tunes she had been playing since she first took up her instrument. Felix believed in justice, in protecting people. And Byleth wasn’t smaller for loving him. She was bigger. She was stronger than ever. 

When she looked up again, she saw everything much clearer. The sky really was darker than it should have been. Thales’ magic was trying to confuse the people of Faerghus, to turn them against each other. Brawling had taken hold on all sides, no one knew if they were striking friend or foe. All the while, Thales was beguiling them to join his side.

Felix rushed Thales with his blade. He wasn’t the only one, either. As if from nowhere, Dimitri was rushing at Thales as well, his long legs overtaking Felix’s as his ancestral spear entered the clash.

“Get out of here,” Felix growled across Thales at Dimitri, as Dedue sprinted past Byleth to catch up.

“No!” Dimitri roared, dodging a Death spell from Thales and striking toward him with the spear.

Ashe and Kronya were flying back toward them. Kronya’s tease rang out over the battle clash, “You’re trying so hard—how cute.” Her whip slashed another cut across Ashe’s leg, but just when she was about to snap the whip back, Ashe had caught it under his foot, stomping down hard.

Like a fish on the line, Kronya’s own force flung her off balance. She tripped into one of the crevices created by Thales’ quake, and Ashe bore down on her to end it.

Felix and Dimitri continued their attacks on Thales, but as with Solon, nothing slowed him.

When Byleth raised her instrument again, she felt a similar sensation to the first time she had screamed her magic. Something was moving through her, directing her as she played, and she hadn’t a clue what it was or how it worked. The instrument shuddered and vibrated as her bow arm extended automatically, and with each press, her fingers held as hard as they could to the strings to keep them from vibrating away.

She fiddled obstinately—while sorcerers threw white light into the monsters’ eternally open eyes, while humans brawled indiscriminately, and while the two strongest men in the Kingdom fought an abomination of lost and discarded ideologies made flesh.

Yet, Byleth was the one who retained Thales’ snarling focus. He struck out with his hand casting more Death her way. Felix, noticing too late, ran toward her, but her music had already created a shield of brambles that took the spell. Obliterated, the weed tumbled away into the crowd.

Byleth’s bow sawed hard at a piece dark enough to match Thales’ magic. Yet, with every opportunity, she broke his dark strains, weaving in light scales and bright fiddling that transposed it into a triumph.

The dark sorcerer’s hand was darkening from its usual chthonic pallor. From his wrist shot a blackened woody branch. As Byleth continued playing the branch forked into hooked twigs and segments. From his fingers came new branches that grew and thickened into a full bough.

His still functional hand raised to cast another quake that shattered the capitol steps. Dimitri slipped, falling down the broken stairs as Dedue rushed after him. Byleth stumbled until vines and stiff grasses rose to stabilize her feet. As she continued playing, Felix rushed Thales again with his sword.

Aftershocks erupted though the capitol plaza, and aside from the tired sorcerers who were still working to subdue the monsters, many of the other combatants had paused to watch the battle. Agarthans and Knights lowered their arms and gazed up at the capitol steps: where a vagabond musician was reifying a pale, inhuman man, bent on wiping out the progenitor spirit of nature, into a tree; where Faerghus’s most glorious anachronism, the best swordsman in Fodlan, twirled his deadly blade about the grasping sprouting branches, hewing and cutting the flesh between.

And yet, for the onlookers, the music was kindly. It vibrated with inner strength, youthful dreams that they had forgotten in the hustle and bustle. Peace eased their quotidian stress. 

The song suggested to them how absurd battle was. Why were they fighting in the first place?

They just wanted to _be_ , and _being_ was hard. Every day they had striven—until the striving tensed their heartstrings, notch by notch as if tightening the peg of a stringed instrument, until they were high-strung and ready to lash out at kingdom and country, at friend and family.

And in their hearts, the song trilled the green of new hopes—new slopes to climb, new songs to sing, new vistas to paint. If they learned to communicate, they could find new strategies to make their world a little bit better. The music fortified their heart-strings, as they found the strength to lay down their arms and listen.

Byleth had fiddled Thales’ hands to branches. She had stretched his hair to the sky, turning it dark in black-wood boughs and willowy leaves. As his feet rooted into the ground, they broke the stairs and reached deep into soil, wild with insects and the living things that he so hated. Here he was, gaining his throne above ground, his new barkskin nurtured with fertilizers. She spread his chest in bowls and burls. In the center, she bored a hollow, the kind of hole that a sheltering squirrel would be grateful to find before Fhirdiad’s winter.

“I’ve made a way,” Byleth called out, her voice on the edge of breaking from the exertion of her craft.

Felix performed the steps of his Finesse Blade, moving expertly through the motions that Byleth had traced with her finger on the leather scabbard of his sword. With the final movement, the thrust the blade deep into the dark hollow that Byleth had created, straight into the heart.

A wailing howl rose into the sky turning the gloaming daylight a sickly purple. In waves, magic users fell to their knees and reached their fingers into the grasses, scraping into the earth between the stonework to stabilize from the corruption.

Byleth fell into the arms of the swordsman who had dropped his blade and run to her side. On the first day of Autumn, the sky over Faerghus went dark. The black tree on the capitol steps had spoken its last.

* * *

Felix looked as if he’d been through a food processor, mummy wrapped and utterly morose to have to stay in bed.

The sorcery academy hospital was working at capacity. Visitors had absconded with all the waiting room chairs to settle in by their loved ones’ beds. Byleth had already given the chair from Felix’s room to an elderly woman visiting her son in the recovery room next door. Instead, she perched on Felix’s nightstand, and Mercedes didn’t bat an eye about it.

She settled her viola across her body, and plucked it lazily, fingers dancing something soft to urge Felix’s recovery. The music occupied her while Felix’s ribs slowly healed. Many of his cuts had already become scars, toughening and polishing his skin with their glossy tissue.

“How are things on the outside?”

Byleth smiled at his pitiful phrasing. Healing was a prison. Outside this convalescent jail, massive efforts were required to restore Fhirdiad, and it wasn’t all clearing trees from the middle of the roads. There was also the problem of fortifying crumbling masonry before Winter froze and exacerbated those gaps into a brittleness that could bring down the whole city.

“Every day walking toward the capitol is a little less spooky. The roads are so torn up, people still aren’t bothering with cars. A lot of shops are still on holiday. Your security team is going insane with people using their side entrance to get into the capitol offices since the front steps are a no go. Fortunately, the trains are back on schedule…”

Byleth went on to tell Felix about how she had won the battle against public works not to use weed killer on the grasses that coated the capitol plaza. The promenades that had once been barren and grey now sprouted with grass that would yellow and go to seed in a few weeks, as the trees let go of their personal baggage by littering leaves across the ground. The grasses, she had argued, should be the least of their concern when there were so many roads and plazas that would need to be ripped up and entirely repaved.

She described how the sorcerers were extracting the monsters, roots-and-all from the sidewalks. Byleth and some of the other sorcerers were working to relocate the trees, lest public works try to hew them down. It had been her idea to use their grafts to create a stand of trees just outside of the city to memorialize the struggle. She and Rhea had already discussed the possibility of permanent spells around the grove for rest and healing.

After the dark purple magic had left the air, Fhirdiad immediately started buzzing into a kind of recovery. The King himself took over some of Felix’s responsibilities. Blaiddyd worked with Ingrid to develop trials, rehabilitation plans, and in many cases, therapy for many of the former Agarthans who elected to remain in the city. The Fall winds aided the humans in blowing the corruption away from the air.

The Thales tree still stood. It didn’t take long for a squirrel to move into the central hole and begin his autumnal hoarding duty. Birds found its branches to be a safe haven, while they scouted Fhirdiad for its recent abundance of stray seeds. The tree was cultivating a unique ecosystem on the capitol steps.

“I know you’re bored. After this…” Byleth’s fingers traced _The Edge of Dawn_ one note at a time. The music soothed the quiet room, while medics discussed injuries outside the door. “We’ll head up north, and you can take me on those hikes around Fraldarius that you keep talking about.”

Felix smiled, his head falling deeper into the pillow as he began to drift off, thinking of the foliage in Fraldarius at that time of year. Tremoring deciduous trees would be shaking their leaves from green to deep russet. In a few weeks, the red would become brighter, like fire on the side of the cliffs, before turning all to gold.

But he would lead Byleth further still along the trails, those same paths he had once blazed with Glenn. She would smell the sap from the thick-needled pines with sap-blood so rich she could use it to resin her bow. Three hundred feet more of elevation gain, they would stop to catch their breath at treeline to see the little white flowers, their leaves pulpy reservoirs for water, their petals shaped like cups.

They would look over the summit to see the ocean rushing in and out of a grotto cut out so far beneath their feet. She would say, “I’ve never climbed this high before. You must be completely insane.”

As he held her tight to keep her from blowing off the edge, he would reply, “And yet, here you are with me.”

She would dangle her feet over a lesser cliff and fiddle something new, something so fresh that even the craggy rocks above the treeline would sprout with little plants. She would create flowers, heedless that the nighttime would frost them over and they would be gone come the next morning. And Felix, although aware of the need to lead them down off the cliff before sun fall, would still wish that they could celebrate those cliffs forever.

* * *

Felix heard Byleth’s viola singing in his apartment before he began turning the keys in each of the deadbolts. His entrance lights flickered. Stepping into the hallway, Felix had begun keying in the digits for his security system when the interface flickered and went blank.

“Byleth!” he called, “The security system—”

“Oh!” she came around the corner, instrument in hand. “Should I not play in here?”

Felix’s face crumpled into conflict: security or music. And then, he let it pass. “No, play all you want. We don’t need it. Anyone comes through that door, we can take them.”

She grinned at him, and he smiled softly back. Her eyes traveled from his mouth to the pharmacy bag in his hand. “Oh no, are those pain killers? I thought Mercedes said you were as good as new.”

“I am,” Felix set the bag down on the counter. “That’s for my allergies—antihistamines.”

Byleth chuckled as Felix glared at the bag like it might tattle stories of his unforgivable weakness to all his ancestors.

“Let’s go to the pub tonight.” Byleth shrugged her hips into a pair of pants under her skirt. Removing the skirt, she threw it into her suitcase and pulled out a sweater for the evening.

“Okay,” Felix stopped midway through letting his hair down to put it back up in his more casual ponytail. “You don’t have to live out of that suitcase.” He kept his back to her as he spoke. “Move your stuff in—it’s not that much.”

“I thought I’d probably need to get my own space soon.”

“But you’re safe here.”

“I don’t think I need two deadbolts and thirteen-digit-long security codes to keep me safe.”

“It’s not the locks that I was talking about. And it’s not just safety.” He turned to Byleth, giving her that intense and slightly angry look that she had come to know as a marker for those times he was getting something overly emotional caught in his throat. “You know, if I was stupid—really stupid—I would have already programmed your name as all my passwords. You know that, right?”

Byleth paused, the space between her eyebrows creasing. He was still looking at her with that sick emotional glare. Then, it fell into place easily. She laughed, “I love you too, Felix. Do you want me to make your name my phone password?”

“No. Just stay here, unpack your bag.”

“Okay then.”

Felix lifted Byleth onto the arm of the couch. With one hand wrapped to support her back, he pressed in. The more furious and demanding the kissing, the further back he let her recline until she was resting into the crook of the couch, and he was making his was on top of her. She had her hands in his black sweater, playing his newly healed ribs like a fiddle.

“Felix, wait—” she gasped into his mouth.

“I’m fine, I’m healed.” He grinded their hips, and despite Byleth’s words, she already had one leg wrapping around him.

“I know but we’re going to be late!”

“Late? Late for what?” But when he started to pull up, her arms were around him, bringing him back down to her.

* * *

As they walked down the street toward the pub, Byleth was still running her fingers through the back of her hair to mitigate the ravages from the couch cushions. Her hair looked fine, but Felix let her keeping worrying at it.

So far from the capitol, the nightlife streets of Fhirdiad had been untouched by the battles. All the usual cafes and bars were open and more crowded than ever. Stepping between the municipal neighborhoods that surrounded by the capitol—where trees had broken up through the sidewalks and vines trellised between buildings—and this lights-in-shop-windows downtown, it almost felt like stepping between reality and a movie set. Byleth would have been hard-pressed, however, to identify which was the set and which was reality.

“Don’t look so smug,” Byleth grumbled, as her fingers did one last pass. Felix only smirked.

When they showed up at the door, the pub’s usual bouncer was replaced for the night by two of Felix’s most trusted agents. Byleth rolled her eyes, “I told you we’d be late.”

“Late for what?” Felix asked suspiciously after nodding to the plain-clothes agents.

“You’ll see,” Byleth tugged her reluctant beau inside. His eyes adjusted to the dim lighting in the pub, as hands to waved at him from the corner. It was the only large table in the bar, and it was full of his friends.

“Byleth,” he growled, “the fuck is this?”

Byleth didn’t need to answer, because they were already within range of Annette’s bright voice. “You made it! We’re here to celebrate since you’re the last one out of the hospital!” Annette promptly slurped a bright pink cocktail through a straw.

Next to Annette, giving Felix one of her too-knowing smiles, Mercedes said, “Surprise!”

Beside them, Ingrid was busy texting before putting her phone in her bag and looking around at the rest of them like she meant business.

“Relax, Fe, we just wanted to celebrate—you know—our future,” Sylvain pulled Felix into the booth while Byleth slid beside him. If he didn’t know any better, he’d say that the corners of her mouth were wide with smiles.

Felix peered deeper into the corner to see Dimitri, flanked by Dedue and Ashe. The latter looked slightly shell-shocked to be sitting right next to the King in plainclothes but passed them a sheepish grin.

The friends all looked comfortable in their street clothes. Of course, the clothes did nothing to disguise any of them, but the gesture seemed to release them from the burdens of their authority. They were all bruised, scarred, and calloused, but they looked more at ease than she had seen them in a long time.

“Mercedes says you’re staying in Fhirdiad now!” Annette said, leaning toward Byleth. “You’ll have no trouble passing the Crest exams, I know it.”

Byleth pumped her fist in thanks. “I’ll be playing for the Fhirdiad orchestra. It’s not fulltime, though.”

“So you’ll go back to busking?” Ingrid asked, her eyes on Felix. Byleth could feel him tense beside her, and she slid one of her feet between his. Wasn’t he reassured by now that she could defend herself?

“Sometimes, maybe—I don’t want to stop that. But I was hoping to get involved in something bigger.” Felix’s hand found her knee under the table, and she felt heat rise to her face that had nothing to do with the whiskey cocktail she had been sipping on.

“You should open a flower shop,” Annette tossed off.

“You’re doing good work organizing some of these public renovations,” Dimitri added.

“I still think you would make a good teacher,” came Ashe’s hesitant suggestion.

“Or a great therapist,” Mercedes put in sweetly.

Felix had clammed up and was squeezing Byleth’s knee a little too tightly. “I have to admit, there’s a lot of work to do with the state of Fhirdiad’s hospitality.” Annette cackled, which set off a round of awkward laughing among the friends. “I think I’ll figure it out as I go, though…”

The conversation continued as the young officials unofficially bounced ideas off each other about how to renew Faerghus and recapture their peoples’ hearts.

Byleth sat back in the booth, watching her swordsman input small phrases, practical and insightful. Somehow, Byleth had found herself stuck in a story about all the big questions at once: safety, justice, hope, the past, the future, loyalty, love... These riddles had too many answers. They would never stop being complex or even, at times, painful. And yet, Byleth found some things to be very simple.

Because to take action, she had to keep it simple: there was a man and she loved him; there were people and she cared about them; there was a city and she would help to heal it. 

* * *

A week off. Byleth had talked him into it, of course.

It was only possible since he began sharing responsibilities with Ashe. Between Ashe and Dedue, Blaiddyd would be fine for the few days that Felix was gone. There were no public appearances scheduled and the King would mostly work in his office.

A week off. He hadn’t taken that much time away since his father had died.

Cloaked in a long black jacket with broad sleeves, Byleth looked like a natural thing amidst the train’s metallic interior. She had one hand tucked into a pamphlet Mercedes had given her on healing magic. It was already an hour into their ride, and Felix had just barely stopped looking over his shoulder. 

He hadn’t left Faerghus since the Fodlan Wars, and back then it hadn’t been to take a holiday. As they headed East, he watched the window, as if he might see some clear distinction between the land that marked the Kingdom he fought so hard for and the worlds outside their borders.

“The conductor will announce when we pass into Leicester, you know.”

Felix nodded.

Her hand grazed his leg as the train bumped and rattled, a great metal caterpillar dragging its steel heels on old infrastructure. She looked overhead, checking that her viola case was stable in the rack. Felix continued to peer out from the window seat, reading every meter that passed as a sign and symbol of his home country skating by.

“What?” He asked feeling her gaze on him.

“Nothing. I’m just glad we’re getting out of Fhirdiad for a bit.” Her hand rested gently on his knee.

“Yeah.” He wrapped an arm around her shoulders and tugged her to look at the passing landscape with him. “Me too.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for reading my story. This was a close personal project that helped me work through a few demons, and I really appreciate everyone taking that journey with me.
> 
> I wish you all the best!

**Author's Note:**

> Take care and thanks for reading!


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